


Thief's Quest

by Artemisdesari



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Bilbo Baggins & Nori Friendship, F/M, Nori goes back in time, Nori's family instincts, She is not ready for this, The Arkenstone turned out to be a magical doohickey, Thief Nori, Time Travel Fix-It, guard dwalin, oblivious idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 67,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27514687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemisdesari/pseuds/Artemisdesari
Summary: Nori has a history of making horrible decisions. Taking her grief about Dwalin calling off their courtship out on the Arkenstone might turn out to be the best horrible decision she's ever made. Somehow, destroying it has landed her in the past, fourteen years before the quest for Erebor ever began. That means she has a chance to change things for the better and not just for her, she can change them for Briar Baggins, Fili and Kili too. If she can get Thorin to listen.Updates Monday
Relationships: Dwalin/Nori (Tolkien)
Comments: 671
Kudos: 264





	1. And Would Leave the World to Mourn

**Author's Note:**

> When the first breath of winter  
> Through the flowers is icing  
> And you look to the north  
> And a pale moon is rising  
> And it seems like all is dying  
> And would leave the world to mourn
> 
> ~ The Last Unicorn

It has been a week since the battle for Erebor. A week since Thorin, Fíli and Kíli were killed. A week since the hopes of Durin’s folk took a crushing blow. They have the mountain, but at the cost of the elder branch of the line of Durin, a line unbroken for generations. Dáin will be a good king, but he is not the king that they want and not the king that they need. Nori hurts, and she likely will for some time. Every part of her aches, bleeds, burns or some combination of the three. Her eyes burn with tears that she does not want to shed, but that bleed from her anyway. Her heart is an open wound that pours with the agony of grief for young lives cut too short and a difficult life stolen in the moment when it stood a chance of getting better. Her muscles scream when she moves after months of travel and fighting and too little food. 

The rest of the Company are not faring any better. Dwalin has not left Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli’s bodies since they were brought in from the battlefield, standing guard over them past the point of exhaustion until someone, mainly Nori and Balin, bullies him into sleeping for a couple of hours only to return to the same job straight after. She hopes he will stagger in soon, she could use the comfort of his arms even if it is only as he sleeps fitfully. The funeral is not long over, the bodies of their fallen King and friends interred in a crypt below, and she wonders if Dwalin has taken to guarding _that_ door as well. His loyalty to Thorin has always been strong, it was one of the things that made her the most wary about agreeing to court him when he had asked her, and she had suspected that the time would come when his loyalty to her would take second place to his loyalty to his king. Perhaps this is that time. The only reason that the door to the crypt has not yet been blocked with solid stone, and as such would require a guard, is that Dís will want to see them when she arrives. Or will _need_ to see them anyway. Nori very much doubts anyone _wants_ to see the rotting bodies of their brother and children. 

Dís is not the only one who has lost everything either, Nori reminds herself as she glances at the still and silent form of Briar Baggins. The hobbit has not eaten since the day of the battle, and the whole Company heard the heartbroken wail when Briar realised that Fíli and Kíli were dead. Briar had been in love and the idiot boy, or boys since Nori is not one to judge either way, had not even been aware of it. In fairness, most of the Company had been entirely unaware of it. Except perhaps Balin, the crafty old goat always _did_ see more than he let on. Briar, however, needs to eat. More than any of the others realise. Nori only knows because she spent some time traipsing in and out of Bree in the years before she started to work for Thorin. Most of the Company are probably entirely unaware that they basically starved the poor girl throughout the quest. Briar was skin and bones when they reached the mountain, there cannot be much more life left in her though Bofur keeps on attempting to get her to eat.

Idly, Nori wonders if Bofur isn’t a little bit sweet on their hobbit. 

Hours tick slowly by, she lingers with the Company as they get progressively more and more drunk on something that they managed to dig up from one of the lower levels. It’s probably vile, at least their expressions every time they take another mouthful tells her that they certainly aren’t enjoying it. Nori would join them, except that she’s worried about Dwalin, who still has not appeared, and she stopped getting too deeply into her cups when she started working for Thorin. Better to keep her wits about her. It has been a habit for nearly twelve years, and even though her position in the future is uncertain she doesn’t want to break it just yet. Regardless of whether she works for Dáin or retires with her vast wealth, Nori wants to keep her head as clear as possible. She has seen what happens to dwarves who drink to drown their pain. 

By the time that most of the Company have almost passed out from their alcohol fueled wake, kept separate from the rest of their people purely because the other dwarves who had come to Erebor had not been through the same experiences as the Company, Nori is concerned. Dwalin should have returned by now.

He is on the wall when she finally finds him, staring out over the battlefield at the tents filled with Men and elves who were either injured in the fighting or who have nowhere else to go. Even without the loss of the line of Durin, Nori would be tempted to say that the cost of reclaiming the mountain has been too high. Dwalin looks exhausted, worse than he has looked in the entire time she has been aware of him, and she has been aware of him longer than she has known him. She hesitates, though she never has hesitated to approach him before, even before they were courting and she was simply the thief who tormented him at every turn. 

“I failed,” Dwalin says, as though he knows she is there. He always has known though, it was part of what drew her to him in the first place.

“You couldn’t have known,” Nori replies, stepping forward to stand beside him. “None of us could.”

“It was our _job_ to know,” he snarls. “Yours and mine, and instead we let ourselves get distracted.”

“It was an impossible task!” Nori growls back. “If there had been more of us maybe we would have had the time to figure it all out. If everything hadn’t gone entirely to shit… If Thorin hadn’t done exactly what his grandfather did and fallen to the gold… We can’t change it.”

“You can’t lay this on Thorin,” Dwalin snaps in reply. “This is on me. I should have known better. That’s two kings I’ve lost for this cursed mountain. I won’t lose a third.”

“Are you leaving?” Nori asks, because she knows that she will go with him without a thought.

“No,” Dwalin shakes his head. “Dáin has offered me the opportunity to redeem myself.”

“You don’t need to redeem yourself, not for Thorin, not for Thráin,” Nori insists, “and it’s orc shit that anyone would insist you have to. Especially someone who refused to come until Smaug was gone.” He looks down at her silently.

“I wish I could say it wasn’t going to change things.” He tells her softly. 

“Two weeks ago you were talking about getting married,” Nori says quietly.

“I know,” Dwalin bows his head. “And we were going to, but not…” he trails off. “It could be decades, Nori. You shouldn’t wait, not for me. I think it might be better that we call it a day.”

“And if I don’t want to?” Nori challenges. “What if I decide that I want to wait?” 

Nori has never been the sort to open herself to love. As far as she has always been concerned so long as she gets more than a toy between her legs on occasion she will be happy with her lot in life. Dwalin snuck in and through every defense that she had before she even realised he was doing it, but this is exactly the sort of situation that she had feared would come up between them. She has always feared that Dwalin’s loyalty to Thorin would come between them. _She_ was loyal to Thorin, she would not have followed him across Middle Earth regardless of who was with him had she not been. Dwalin’s loyalty to Thorin was stronger, but they were cousins and close friends as well as everything else, and perhaps he needs someone to follow or perhaps he just feels his failures too keenly. Nori has failed too many things in her life, has messed up too many times and lost too many friends to _want_ to follow anymore. Being with Dwalin changed that, being with Dwalin made her want to be better than Thorin’s hired spy and thief. Being with Dwalin made her look to the future for the first time rather than live in the moment. 

“Then you can wait,” Dwalin tells her, “but I won’t be coming to you. You deserve better than a failure to his king.”

“I think I get to decide what I deserve,” she says firmly, “and what I don’t deserve is to come second place to the king neither of us knows.” 

She can feel tears threatening again and she refuses to let them come. She refuses to shed anymore tears regardless of the reason that she is doing so. She did not come on this quest so that she could be pushed aside because Dwalin has decided that he is inadequate and nor is it fair of him to take away something she had started to hope and long for because he is grieving. They are _all_ grieving, this is not the outcome that any of them wanted, but it is not fair of Dwalin to lash at her this way. Not when she is hurting too.

“I know,” he admits, and there _are_ tears shining in his eyes. A vicious part of her is glad about that. “I need… I cannot be what you need, Nori, not like this. It isn’t right of me to ask you to wait with me.”

“If you were anyone else,” Nori tells him, turning to leave, “I would have put a knife in you a dozen times by now.”

“As is your right,” Dwalin agrees and she marches away.

She has gone soft, she thinks as she storms through the mountain. It is sparsely populated, but that does not mean that no one gets in her way as she marches with no thought about where she is marching to. Any dwarf that crosses her path and does not move rapidly enough meets with her fist, often with a knife in her other hand for good measure. By the time she reaches her destination she is deep into the mountain and being stared at by a young lad as he stands guard on the door to the room which holds Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli’s corpses. He has probably been told that he has been given a great honour, but really Nori suspects that he was given the job because everyone else wanted to get drunk on whatever rat’s piss they had brought with them on the supply wagons from the Iron Hills. Either way, he cannot possibly be older than Kíli is… was.

“Move,” she orders, her voice harsh even to her ears.

“I was told to…” he trails off when he sees the knife in her hand catch in the torch light. Those torches will not be put out until Dís has seen the bodies.

“I said move,” she growls. “I was of the Company, will you deny me a moment to grieve alone?”

“But the…”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” She snaps. “Stab a corpse. Fat lot of fucking good _that_ will do me. Should have stabbed the bastard a few times while he was alive, probably wouldn’t be in this mess now if I had.” She isn’t actually sure which of them she is talking about now. One of the lads so that they would not have been permitted to come, Thorin so that he never could have come up with the ridiculous plan, or Dwalin when he had offered her a courtship in the first place. She had known that he would turn on her in the end. The guard steps aside. “My thanks, lad.” She goes to step through the door.

“I will have to tell Lord Dáin,” he stammers.

“Fine,” Nori says, “you do that. So long as you fuck off while you’re doing so.”

He runs and she should probably feel a bit bad about the position she has just put him in, but she is hurting and she wants to be alone with it. Where better to do so than with the corpses of her dead king and his heirs? She walks around them in silence for a while. It is cold this deep in the mountain and were it not for the bloodless pallor of them she would think them sleeping while on the road. They were cleaned for the funeral, but it was a poor job.

“This is your fault you know,” she says almost conversationally to Thorin. “If you hadn’t let him make that stupid oath to follow and protect you even if it meant his death,” because she knows that Dwalin thinks he should have died before allowing Thorin to meet his end. “If you hadn’t brought those boys with you.” She crosses to stand between Fíli and Kíli. “You’ve taken everything from Briar, you know. I wager she won’t see the end of another week. Foolish idiot couldn’t see what was right in front of your face.” Of course, hindsight allows for many things, including seeing all the little clues that Briar gave out. “And now you’ve taken everything from me too. I wanted to grow old with him, which is stupid given this whole thing was basially a suicide run. And all to grab a stupid fucking rock! What was wrong with Ered Luin anyway? It was nice there. We had jobs and homes, we weren’t rich but we were all doing alright. What’s so special about this place? It’s a mess? It’s in ruins and it _stinks_ of dragon!” Her eyes fall on the Arkenstone which glows eerily on Thorin’s chest. She picks it up, surprised to find that it is not as heavy as it appears. “What’s so special about this thing?” She mutters. “All this, coming here so that you could get your hands on this.” She shakes her head. “Well you’ve been buried with it, shows what it was worth really. I’ve lost the only dwarf I’ll ever dare to love for a worthless _rock_.” She whirls as she says it, hurling the Arkenstone across the room. 

It shatters with what would have been a very satisfactory crash, were it not for the blast that comes out of it that knocks her unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I started a new fic. I am utterly incapable of focussing on one at a time these days. More Girl Nori, because she's become my favourite thing. I do have a pairing in mind for my Bilbo (Briar) but let's face it, that didn't work out properly when I was writing Wild Magic so why would it work out now?
> 
> The bit about Thrain is book canon, he left to try and get into Erebor about 100 years before Thorin managed it. He vanished while camping on the boarders of Mirkwood. Dwalin and Balin were both part of that quest. This will be a mix of book and movie canon, with a very healthy dose of "what the fuck is canon?" thrown in there. Fair warning, the rating may go up, because it's Nori and the last Nori fic I did got out of hand.


	2. Start of Something Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Briar-Rose Baggins,” the girl says finally, “at… at your service I suppose.”

The ceiling above her is familiar and it should not be. Nori has not been in this particular room of this particular inn for about thirteen years. Since not long before she actually accepted the job for Thorin in fact. There were very few trips to Bree after she agreed to spy for her king. She sits up and rests her head in her hands. She feels like she has been drinking for a week and now some enterprising goblin spawn is digging a spear into the backs of her eyes. It is not a sensation that she has missed. 

"It's early," a voice says and she freezes. "Come back to bed."

She knows the voice, not that she has heard it in fourteen years. Nori turns to look and her gaze falls on her old partner, the dwarf she once ran cons with. She swallows against the urge to be sick as she takes in his sleepy green eyes and grey streaked russet hair. He looks so different from the last time she saw him.

"I need some air," she says as she reaches for her clothes, "go back to sleep."

"If you're that upset about my decision," Karn grumbles, "why don't you come with me? The offer is still open and I don't care how many you fuck on the side. Particularly if we can use it to get coin out of them."

She remembers the offer. Karn made it the night before he left for the Iron Hills after their last job together. The job itself, although she can't remember it all that clearly, had gone well and they had gotten everything they wanted and more. Unfortunately, their mark had then gone running into the wilds citing the fact that he had lost everything. His body had been found a week later washed down the river and she and Karn had decided to skip town for a bit. Towns of Men were rarely safe to linger in after a con anyway and while Nori has never been overly burdened by the moral conundrums that come with her life, she is what she is, even she can admit that a con which results in the mark taking his own life is one that has gone too far. 

“I’m not the marrying kind, Karn,” she reminds him, squashing down the stab of agony that comes with knowing she would have married Dwalin in a heartbeat. Besides, regardless of the fact that thieving and spying, and occasionally killing for hire, seems to be what Mahal made her for she does not just do it because it is what she is called to do. She does it because as good as Dori is it does not make up for the fact that their mother could not afford to put him through the kind of apprenticeship which would bring him to the attention of people who could make him great. It’s one of the reasons she accepted the job with Thorin, so that she could bring Dori to the attention of the kind of people who could appreciate his work.

“One day,” Karn yawned, “someone will catch your eye.”

“When the world is remade,” Nori snorted, trying to sound glib. It fell flat and Karn gave her a long look. 

“Like that is it?” He asked, shrewdly. You didn’t last long in their line of work if you ignored little hints and clues. “Well, whoever they are, they’re an idiot. Now, if we aren’t sleeping and we aren’t fucking, kindly bugger off so I can at least do the former.”

Karn, Nori realises abruptly, is probably the reason that Dwalin slipped into her heart so quickly and easily. There are a lot of similarities between them. Rather than dwelling on it all she dresses quickly, grabs her belongings and her cut of the money. The first thing she needs to do is confirm she is definitely in Bree and find out the date, because on the one hand someone has managed to convince Karn to help them play a truly horrible trick on her, and on the other she has somehow fallen back in time.

Somehow, the second option is the more believable one. She knows too many of Karn’s dirty secrets for him to agree to playing such a trick, even if he were offered all the money in Erebor. Money cannot protect you from a knife between the ribs if the one doing the stabbing knows what they are doing. Nori is truly vindictive when she feels she has been wronged, and it does not matter in the slightest who it was who wronged her at the time. Of course, her certainty of the second might have something to do with the Man behind the bar in the Prancing Pony. Old Butterbur had passed some time between her final trip to Bree with Karn and her final trip just before she started working for Thorin. Nori’s life has never really been marked with dates, years, months and days mean very little to her in the grand scheme of things, she has always focussed more on the events. The big and little things that happen around her which form stepping stones from one part of her life to the next are all that really matter. The date of the event is a more abstract thing to her and while she is aware of the year Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli died, because that is  _ not _ the kind of thing that gets passed over and ignored, for the most part years bleed and blend from one to the next.

“What’s the date?” She grunts at Butterbur as she orders some breakfast. Hopefully some food will help with the pain in her head. He tells her as he slides a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage and toast in front of her and she does a quick mental calculation. One of the other reasons she tends to avoid dates is the simple fact that Men, elves, dwarves and hobbits all reckon them differently. “What year?” She asks once she has determined that she has lost several months and is now some time in midspring.

“2927 of the Third Age as the elves reckon it,” he replies promptly. “How much did you drink last night, lad?” The assumption that she is male does not bother Nori in the slightest, dwarves all take on a male identity outside their mountain homes.

“Not enough,” Nori mutters, converting the date and swearing under her breath. “You sure about that year?” She asks. He gives her a level glare and she lets out a slow breath. 

Fourteen years in her past. She wants to question how it happened, but she suspects she already knows. She broke the Arkenstone. It is the last thing she remembers before waking next to Karn. She eats slowly and silently as she thinks. Nori is good with numbers and good with information, it’s another thing that she has needed in order to make it as what she is, so it is not all that hard for her to start putting it together. After all, it would be too much of a coincidence for her to wake up in the past after breaking the Mahal damned thing if there was another cause. But why fourteen years, she asks herself as she sips at a cup of coffee. It is not cheap stuff this far from the plains where it grows, but most dwarves prefer the dark and bitter taste to the light flavour of the tea that hobbits prefer and enough of her people pass through Bree regularly enough to make it worth Butterbur keeping it in. After the better part of a year without, to her memory anyway, it tastes divine. Why not fourteen days? Why not fourteen weeks, or months? Why fourteen years? The number does not bother her so much. Fourteen is a lucky number to dwarves, the seven Fathers and the seven Mothers. 

That many days would have given her a week to work out how to save Fíli and Kíli at least, if not Thorin. That many weeks may well have enabled her to head off a lot of the problems they experienced after crossing the Misty Mountains. That many months and she could have at least gotten to Briar Baggins before the wizard did and either helped the poor lass prepare or talked her into taking a holiday around the time the Company were to meet at her home. Nori may have turned a blind eye to Briar’s infatuation with a certain prince, or pair of them, but she had clearly seen how flustered and upset Briar had been upon their arrival. But fourteen years? So many things happened in those years, starting with Karn leaving to go to the Iron Hills. How many times in the run up to the quest had she debated sending him a raven and finding out what he knew about his side of the mountains? How many times had she wished she had called in some debt or another that she had been owed to ease their path?

There is too much to know what should be done this far back, if anything. Perhaps she should leave with Karn and let things play out. It isn’t as though there is really anything waiting for her at the end of it all. For all she knows they could have won the battle and Dwalin would have cast her aside anyway in favour of living his life entirely and completely for Thorin. Except for the fact that while she has never been overly burdened with a powerful moral compass, she still has one. She ignores it for the most part but it is there, and Briar, Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli do not deserve to suffer just because Dwalin has broken her heart, or will break her heart. 

Whichever.

She takes another sip of her nearly cold coffee and pulls a face. It is too expensive to waste by letting it get cold. Besides, it isn’t like she has to decide  _ now _ . She has money, she has time. Dori and Ori are not in such dire straits that they will suffer for lack of this particular purse, as she recalls she had used it herself in the end about three years before the quest to fund her own rooms  _ away _ from her brother when Dwalin had first started talking courting. Since there is very little chance of her allowing that to happen this time, there is no harm in her using a little more of it now so that she can take a few days to think about what she will do next.

First, she has another cup of coffee and watches the room around her as it begins to fill with people. The Prancing Pony isn’t usually all that busy during the day, although in the evenings it can fill up quickly which makes it something of a pick pocket’s paradise. Now, however, there are only a handful of people there. Some have obviously just arrived on the road and have either stopped in to take rooms or simply want a hot meal before continuing onward. Others are already occupying rooms and still others are local people stopping in for an early lunch. There are always a few rangers, and there is a small group of them on one side of the room watching another group of Men. This second group could, at first glance, also be mistaken for the wild men who roam the area but for the fact that Nori can see that their weapons and belongings are of inferior quality. As wild as the rangers may seem, everything that they have is designed to last well. What catches Nori’s eye about the second group the most, however, is the hobbit lass currently talking to them.

Briar Baggins does not look much different fourteen years in the past to how she will look on the evening that Nori meets her. Granted she has not yet taken to tying her dark hair back from her face, and it falls in curls which would make any dwarf envious, and she is a little more slender, but Nori knows her all the same. She is also surprised to realise that she knows what is happening here, although Briar was telling the story to Bofur rather than Nori and the thief happened to be close enough to overhear it. The ruffians the hobbit is currently talking to will agree to help her get to Rivendell, take her money and abandon her on the road in two days stripped of everything of value.

Quite how Briar ever found it in herself to trust the Company not to do the same thing in fourteen years Nori could never work out, except for the possibility that Gandalf had seen that need for an adventure still buried away. Or perhaps it had more to do with certain members of the line of Durin. Idly, she wonders what would happen if Briar were able to take that first adventure and she should probably leave it alone and let things play out. If she changes this Nori will have committed herself to getting to know Briar Baggins, and once she has done that there will be nothing for it  _ but _ to keep an eye on her and go on that ridiculous quest again. Except that in another time, another  _ lifetime _ , Briar was a friend and Nori’s bizarre moral compass will not allow her to permit a friend being taken advantage of as these people are about to. 

She ambles over and leans on the back of Briar’s chair. 

“You don’t want to trust these, lass,” she tells the hobbit, eyeing the Men carefully. “They look like rangers,” she continues when Briar looks at her quizzically, “but if you look at their gear, then look at the rangers over there,” she points at the hooded figures who are watching them, “it’s older and in bad condition, I’m almost willing to bet actual coin that those swords will have spots of rust on them. These are the kind of Men who will take your money and leave you by the road.”

Which is obvious now that she is really looking at the group, who look like they want to spring from their seats and start swinging, but for the fact that Butterbur is watching them all and the rangers have already started to get to their feet.

“Now, someone like me, on the other hand,” Nori continues, “will cost you less than a third of what these swindlers are trying to charge you, so long as you agree to pay for any supplies we need out of your own pocket. I’ll even take half now and half when we reach wherever it is that you want to go.”

She wants Briar to take the offer and that comes as a surprise. There is something about the way this younger version of the hobbit she knows looks at her, a knowing kind of mischief that Nori only saw small flashes of in the older version. And that extra age was all in Briar's eyes and stance, as far as Nori can tell the hobbit will hardly age at all in the next fourteen years.

“There’s only one of him,” one of the thugs points out. 

“And three of you,” Nori sighs. “Why is it that Men always seem to think they have all the advantages, whether it’s height or numbers.”

“This is both,” Briar points out. “So what makes you so special? Other than the fact that you’re cheap?”

“Low blow,” Nori purrs, “I  _ like _ you. What makes me special is having spent the last seven decades travelling all over both sides of the Misty Mountains, sometimes alone, sometimes with other people. These…  _ Men _ certainly can’t claim to have anything  _ like _ my level of experience.” Then, because she never gets tired of making the innocent ones blush, she leans close enough to the hobbit to tickle the girl’s cheeks with her beard. “And I mean that in  _ everything _ ,” she breathes in a low voice, gratified when Briar’s cheeks turn scarlet.

“I have no idea what you mean,” the hobbit stammers. “But, I suppose if you have more experience you would be the better choice.”

“Well,” Nori grins, and then proceeds to sell the kind stranger act, “if that’s all settled, might I know the name of my new employer?” The hobbit’s flush grows brighter still and Nori wonders if she could light up the inside of a mountain with it.

“Briar-Rose Baggins,” the girl says finally, “at… at your service I suppose.”

“Nori, at yours and your family’s,” the dwarf replies. “How about you and I go somewhere more private?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've said it before, I'll say it again; I adore writing Nori. Especially girl Nori. Let me know what you think, writing is _so_ much easier with a bit of feedback. Although I suspect this one will end up being another stress relief fic baby


	3. Bad Luck or Good?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If she is honest with herself, which is a terrible thing and she tries very hard not to do it, Nori has to admit that there was a time when she might have pulled the same scam on Briar

Briar-Rose Baggins is not the same fussy and easily flustered lass that Nori will meet in fourteen years. She is, in many ways, completely unlike the dwarves that she may one day call friends, but she is also worlds away from the lonely and isolated hobbit in a home that is too big and quiet for her. 

“Please, just call me Briar,” the hobbit requests as they sit at a table in a private parlour. “Briar-Rose makes me feel like an infant and Mistress Baggins sounds like an old maid.”

“So long as you just call me Nori,” the dwarf nods.

“Gladly,” Briar agrees. 

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Nori says as Briar pours herself some tea, “but as far as I know hobbits don’t make a habit of leaving the Shire.”

“Oh,” Briar smiles, although there is something almost sad about it, “you’re absolutely correct there, of course. As a rule hobbits almost never leave the Shire, and when we do we only come as far as Bree. My mother, you see, was one of those who did go travelling for a while and she always said that once I was of age I should take the opportunity to see the world for myself as well.”

Nori sips her coffee, feeling a little decadent to be having a third cup of it even though it has definitely helped to settle her rolling stomach and pounding head. Briar rarely spoke about her parents on the quest, honestly about all Nori knew was that the hobbit had come into her inheritance fairly early for the daughter of a Took.

“She’s finally convinced you to take a trip,” Nori concludes.

“My father passed about a year ago,” Briar replies. “He was entirely against the idea of me following in my mother’s footsteps, ‘ _ what’s acceptable for a Took is not acceptable for a Baggins _ ’,” she mimics another voice, although Nori has no idea how accurate it might be. “So every time my mother tried to encourage me to learn how to survive or found someone who might take me on my own adventure he put a stop to it. There was nothing malicious in it, he let me have my way in most other things, but I think he was frightened that something would happen to me. Two of my mother’s brothers went on adventures and never returned you see.” In fairness to Briar’s father, Nori thinks, there will come a day in fourteen years or so when Briar may not return either. “Anyway, he died last year and now that the official mourning period is over my mother told me to go and find an adventure before she joined him in the Gardens. I thought I would go to Rivendell, mother always spoke highly of it, but it didn’t take me long to realise that short camping trips and walking holidays in the Shire had done very little to prepare me for such a long journey.”

“So you decided to look for a guide,” Nori concludes.

“Yes,” Briar nods. “I was speaking to Mister Butterbur about it when I was approached by one of the three you saw me with. I am afraid he may have tried to warn me, and I may not have noticed.” Nori shakes her head.

“He’s an alright sort,” she concedes, “but in general the old Butterbur is content to let business be conducted of any sort under his roof provided there’s no fighting and poor outcomes happen outside his walls. This place has been in his family for generations so he knows when to step in and when to turn a blind eye. He wouldn’t have recommended anyone to you, he would only have put the word out to some people he knew were trustworthy if you didn’t find anyone else first.”

If she is honest with herself, which is a terrible thing and she tries very hard  _ not _ to do it, Nori has to admit that there was a time when she might have pulled the same scam on Briar, or someone like her. She would not say that working for Thorin has magically made her into a better dwarf, she simply learnt to pick her targets with greater care and forethought. Aside from that time in Rivendell, but that hasn’t happened yet. Instead she has taken Briar under her wing, and she will not be leaving the girl by the roadside. There is a wrinkle, however, in the form of Briar’s destination. Until the quest rolls around, Nori has no intention of going anywhere  _ near _ the elves. It is not, however, a complete dealbreaker.

“I can get you as far as the border of Elrond’s lands,” Nori says, pointing to an area on the map which she knows is close by, “but relations between dwarves and elves are strained, and there are some personal matters in Dunland that I need to look into.” There is no such thing, but there is still a small settlement of dwarves who were displaced from Erebor living there and caravans run to the area from Ered Luin fairly regularly. Besides, she has absolutely no wish to run into Elrond until she has decided whether she is going to bother with the quest. She has heard stories about that particular elf. “If we get along alright, I can meet you in a safe place six weeks after we part ways and see you as far as Bree on your way back.” She shrugs. “If we don’t get on you’ll have to work out getting back for yourself.”

“I can work with that,” Briar agrees, “I can’t think of anything more miserable than being stuck on the road with someone I don’t like for as long as it will take to get to Rivendell, let alone back.”

“It’ll take us about six weeks to get there if we go by pony,” Nori informs her. “Longer if we go on foot. It’s up to you, of course, you’re the one paying for it. If you’re determined that that is a once and done thing so that you can tell your Ma it isn’t for you, I wouldn’t bother with the pony. If you think you’ll be doing it more often it’ll be worth learning to ride.” Briar shudders. 

“No pony for the moment, I’m quite content to walk if you are?” She offers.

“I walk normally anyway,” Nori shrugs, not seeing any need to go into the fact that she simply cannot  _ afford _ a pony. “Now,” she rubs her hands together, “ _ contracts _ .”

All dwarves love a good contract and, contrary to Nori’s expectations based on the Briar she knows, it appears that this early version of her friend is no stranger to them either. It is a process which helps Nori see the difference that fourteen years and a bad experience at the hands of Men will make on the hobbit. Briar has gaping holes in her knowledge about such an undertaking, holes that will still be there in fourteen years if Nori gets this wrong. Unlike the Briar that the dwarf is familiar with, however, this Briar freely admits what she does and does not know. Sometimes she comes straight to the point on the matter, others she makes a depreciative joke, but she is  _ aware _ . On the quest every other member of the Company had been able to see that Briar didn’t know as much as she liked to pretend she did. None, however, had felt able to approach her on the matter, not after the time that Bofur had tried and Briar had blustered and huffed and seemed to sink into her saddle in shame. Likely she had feared being abandoned in much the same way, contract or no contract.

They haggle extensively over reasonable costs. What to Nori seems like a perfectly reasonable amount, and she would not be a thief if she did not try to get a little more than she really should out of the hobbit. Twelve years of working for Thorin or not, and it’s going to be a real bugger keeping what  _ has _ happened straight with what  _ hasn’t _ happened, Nori never got out of the habit of swindling. Briar, apparently, sees right through her and Nori should have expected that but given the girl’s apparent naivety she had assumed that such insight had been a result of the incident that has just been prevented. Which is not to say that Nori does not get more out of Briar than she should, her friendship is with a future version of this hobbit and it would look very suspicious to everyone if she did not cheat Briar out of  _ something _ .

Once the contract is ironed out to some amount of satisfaction on both sides, Nori takes Briar shopping. Nori quiet enjoys shopping, although she would be the first to admit that very little of what she leaves with has been paid for. She needs to keep in practice after all, a thief who allows their skills to grow rusty is a thief itching for an appointment with the guard.

Such appointments rarely end well.

Briar has the basics; flint and tinder box, bedroll, basic supplies for cooking over a fire, spare clothes and mending kit. She even has a basic sling and a sharp knife that she keeps on her belt, although to Nori’s eyes it is little more than a pocket knife.

“Can you use a sword?” Nori asks as they leave the stables, one time trip or not a pack pony is a worthwhile expense. Supplies are cheaper in Bree than they are in the few villages between here and Rivendell. Besides, pack ponies always fetch a good sale price and even if Briar never travels again this one will more than likely be useful in the sleepy Shire as well. 

“Of course not,” the hobbit laughs. Nori already knew the answer, or thought she did, but it is a little galling all the same to have those early suspicions confirmed.

“A bow, then?” She pushes and Briar shakes her head. “Then what did you intend on doing if you ran into trouble?”

“Hide, mostly,” Briar shrugs. “Hobbits are good at moving without anyone else noticing.” Nori gives her a level look and is pleased when Briar flushes. “How much extra will it cost for you to teach me?” She asks a little sullenly.

“Seven or eight weeks on the road won’t teach you much,” Nori points out, “but I suppose I can come up with something.” It isn’t as though a sword is  _ her _ preferred weapon either. She can use one, she would have been pretty stuck if she couldn’t, but she would much rather sneak in and out, a quick slash and dash with her knives rather than hacking away with a sword or axe, or even smashing things with a hammer. “We better go and find you a sword,” she sighs, “and at least a couple of throwing knives, I doubt they have a bow you’ll have any success with.” 

Briar’s blinding smile is a little unexpected, but then Nori supposes that this really is not the hobbit she knew on the quest. This can only be a good thing. Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> D&D night last night which, yeah, the less said about that session the better. What can I say? I like to be busy.


	4. Crazy After All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it happens, Briar Baggins is a good travelling companion.

As it happens, Briar Baggins is a good travelling companion. Nori had feared that some of the hesitancy and reticence shown by the older version of this hobbit would make travelling as a pair rather than in a large group difficult. Now that they are on the road, however, Nori can see that much of what had made Briar a difficult companion, beyond her ignorance of the ways of the road, was discomfort and wariness. Discomfort as a female in a large group of males, only natural given her horrifying lack of ability with a blade, and wariness based upon a previous experience with travelling which had not ended well and now will not happen at all. 

The initial source of discomfort, that of being alone in the wilds with an armed male, is set aside with a slightly awkward conversation where Nori explains that she is, in fact, of the female persuasion and that for the most part dwarves don’t really  _ care _ about gender. It is not something that she has really had to explain before. Were they in the mountains she might wear something a little more traditionally feminine, she may even have gone all out and worn a dress, but outside of their mountain homes all dwarves prefer to don a male appearance. In part it is to protect their women, who are rare enough, but it is also to save them from having to repeatedly explain that beards, or a lack of, do not indicate the gender of a dwarf as they do in Men. It is simply easier to be seen as male. Briar accepts the explanation with a shrug and moves on, although the defensive set of her shoulders lessens. A foolish action, Nori would be as capable of causing Briar harm as any male given the inclination. Fortunately, such actions are not generally part of the dwarven mindset. True, she will cheat and steal, she will even kill for the right amount of coin, but she will not harm for the sake or enjoyment of it. At least, not beyond the harm caused by taking what is not necessarily rightfully hers. 

The conversion, however, makes her think about the quest. Briar would never have known that Nori is female, and that the dwarf had been covertly looking out for the hobbit anyway. Unmarried dwarves bathe communally, male and female. Married and courting dwarves bathe privately with one another, because once a relationship has reached the point where marriage may be on the cards, their nudity becomes for their partner’s eyes unless it cannot be helped. Like on the road. Briar had still avoided bathing with the dwarves, hobbits are infinitely more private even in circumstances where privacy is in short supply. 

There is no wariness, beyond the small amount that Nori would expect from Briar being outside the safety of the Shire anyway. In fact, the hobbit seems perfectly happy to share all manner of stories from her home. Some are familiar to the dwarf, some are not, but Nori would never have run a successful con if she could not act and so she is able to react to those stories that she has heard appropriately and with little difficulty. What is even more fascinating to the dwarf is that Briar answers any questions she might have freely and openly, as though she cannot think of a reason why she should not. The Briar of the future was wary and answered questions as though expecting the information to be used against her. 

The fussy, wary, and awkward Briar of the future had been difficult to like. True, Nori had come to regard her as a friend and trusted companion, as had the rest of the Company, but she still had her moments where she was almost impossible to tolerate. Perhaps that had been as much down to past encounters as it had been down to the fact that the Company had taken their lead from Thorin and treated her with all the distrust due an outsider. Especially Nori, whose pride had been hurt by the fact that the hobbit had been hired as a burglar. 

By day they walk and talk, or jog which Nori tells Briar is to build up her fitness. At night Nori teaches the hobbit the basics of swordplay. It becomes apparent very quickly that Briar is better suited to ranged fighting and the kind of slash and dash that Nori prefers and this suits the dwarf perfectly. She spent some time in her youth living in Ered Nimrais, mostly to get away from Dori, and while there she had discovered a form of hand to hand combat which had suited her far better than the style taught in Ered Luin. Apparently their proximity to Harad had forced the dwarves of Ered Nimrais to change their fighting style in order to better match their occasionally hostile neighbours. Nori often finds herself heading back there in search of a challenge, she has taught several of her fellow thieves, and the odd assassin, the same style, but it is not the same as fighting someone who has spent their life learning it. Briar picks it up quickly, evidently more limber than many dwarves and light enough on her feet that she moves with surprising swiftness. She also kicks like a mule, which is apparently something that all hobbits are capable of, showing a great deal more strength than her minute stature would suggest. She might not be as strong as a dwarf, but she is definitely far stronger than she looks.

“It’s a shame you don’t wear boots,” Nori says one evening when she has recovered from a kick to the ribs. “You could do some serious damage with the weight of them,” she knocks the side of her boot against the ground and a short blade pops out, sticking out just in front of her toes. “Not to mention what you could add to it with something like this.”

In fairness, she only tends to use that blade in an emergency, they tend to dull quickly once unsheathed and she has not yet managed to work out a mechanism for withdrawing them. Briar examines the blade.

“This is supposed to be one time,” she reminds the dwarf, “just to tell my mother that I’ve been out and it isn’t for me. What would be the point?”

“Is it really not for you?” Nori asks, they’ve only been on the road for about three weeks, days start to roll together a bit out in the middle of nowhere. “You seem happy enough, and you’re better at this than I thought you would be. Seems a shame to do all this training if you aren’t going to leave the Shire again after.” Then, because perhaps she’s pushed a little bit too hard, she shrugs as nonchalantly as she can, tucks the knife blade back into position and gets to her feet. “Let’s try that again, but this time I want you to land one on me without me  _ letting _ you do it.” 

This does not mean that Nori is doing all the teaching Briar may lack many of the basic skills she needs to survive in the wilds, but she  _ is _ a hobbit and if there is one thing that hobbits know it is food. Which includes what can and cannot be foraged from the side of the road. Briar’s knowledge is extensive, much to Nori’s surprise but then the hobbit never got to display it on the quest originally. Dwarves aren’t that fond of the kind of food that a hobbit might forage as a rule, but Nori can think of a few occasions where such a skill would have been useful and she learns as much as she can. She finds herself particularly interested in the poisons. 

There are dwarves, naturally, who deal with plants and the medicines and poisons which can be created with them. In the past Nori has turned her nose up at the idea of using poison on her blades, it seems a step more dishonest than she would usually be comfortable with. After taking part in a quest that has yet to happen, however, she is beginning to see the 

possible value of it, for herself and particularly for Briar. Nori can handle herself for the most part, she might be smaller than Men, orcs and elves but she has the strength and the training to allow her a fighting chance, more than. Briar, on the other hand, has neither. Nori may not be comfortable with the idea of using poisons on her blades, but it is something she urges Briar to consider. To Nori’s surprise, Briar actually seems to take the advice on board, gathering a few berries which she had warned Nori away from and putting them into a jar which had once contained a salve of some kind which Briar had used on her feet during the first week.

“I’m sure Lord Elrond will have facilities of some kind that I can use to extract the poison from these,” she tells Nori as she tucks the jar back into the bottom of her pack.

“What are you going to do in Rivendell?” Nori asks when they begin to walk again.

“Honestly?” Briar shrugs. “I just decided to go there because my mother said it was beautiful and everyone should see it. I suppose I’ll spend some time in the library there, although my Sindarin is fairly rusty so I’m not sure I’ll get that much out of it.”

“Except frustration,” Nori points out.

“That,” Briar agrees. “But I am certain I will be able to find something interesting to do while I am there, practicing everything you have taught me should fill some of my time.” 

“You intend to practice?” Nori asks, a little surprised since part of her had assumed that Briar would prefer to relax and explore the Hidden Valley.

“Well, I’ve spent the time learning it,” the hobbit replies. “It seems silly to let it slide when I’ll need it on the way home.”

Nori is actually not looking forward to parting ways with Briar when they reach Rivendell, which comes as something of a surprise. Given how difficult it had been during the quest to become close to the older version of Briar, Nori had thought the younger version would be equally as hard to come to like. In part her difficulties with the older Briar may have been Nori’s fault. She has ever been prone to off colour jokes and comments with a riske double meaning. The Briar Nori knew would flush in angry understanding and fall silent. This younger Briar will smile while insisting that she knows nothing about anything like that at all, and then casually point out a few herbs along the roadside that, if dried and brewed into a tea, will help protect against pregnancy if one is so desirous of such a thing.

It takes Nori by surprise enough to cause a laugh to bubble from her chest, even as she wonders what could possibly have changed between now and fourteen years in the future. Nori knows that even after the Company had welcomed Briar among them she had never relaxed enough to join in with such ribald joking even though it was common among all of them. Even Fíli and Kíli had more than enough experience to join in with such jests and they would often do so with Nori and Dwalin even when their uncle would throw them a disapproving glare. Then again, Nori had her own particular relationship with those two, and perhaps that is why she missed all the indications that Briar was developing feelings. Now, instead of being surrounded by twelve other dwarves, it is just her and Briar, and this time Briar has nothing to prove to anyone. 

It is much the same as the hobbit lass’ behaviour at night. Since it is only the two of them, and a watch is entirely impractical, they camp as far from the road as they can under the shelter of the trees with their pack pony tied to a nearby tree. They have a fire lit only for the sake of cooking meals, it is late spring and so the evenings are light and the nights growing warm. Briar has a thick, good quality bedroll, as well as clothes that are better suited to the road than those of her future self. Nori, on the other hand, has her blankets but she is also a dwarf and that makes her far more hardy than the other races. They do not tend to feel changes in temperature the way that hobbits and Men do, although extreme cold and heat will eventually cause even  _ them _ trouble. While she has nothing to prove either, it is hard to change the habit of a lifetime, and then some, and begin to behave as herself without checking behaviours which would make people question her presence. She is a thief, she works the occasional con, and she also seems surprisingly able to ferret out information that others would either not think to look for or ignore. All of those things too often require her to be something that she is not.

It is an easy journey, the weather is mostly good and even the odd days when it rains it is only in short bursts that last long enough to soak the pair of them but are short enough that they are dry by the time they stop for the night. They come across a few other travellers, some who pass them on quick horses headed east, others who pass them on the road to Bree, but they are few and far between. It is enjoyable, and Nori and Briar are well on their way to being firm friends when they come across the small cottage. 

Nori remembers it from the quest, they are in the Trollshaws after all, and it was the place that they camped the night that the trolls snatched the ponies. It is somewhat jarring to see it whole, the last time Nori laid eyes on it was fourteen years in the future when it was little more than a burnt out shell. Now it is clearly a single story building with a thatched roof. There is a lean-to on one side that houses a single cow and a horse which has clearly seen better days. There is a pen with a number of chickens to one side, a small garden that is filled with the leaves of a variety of plants, some that Nori can identify and others she cannot. Smoke comes from the chimney, and the front door is opened as an elderly woman walks through it with a bucket of water which she proceeds to pour over the garden.

It stands to reason that the house still stands, and that it would still be occupied, the damage when the Company came across it had been fairly recent, if not recent enough to cause too much concern, it is still strange to see that it is occupied. Nori hardly knows what she had expected, but part of her had planned to tell Briar that she would meet the hobbit there for the return trip. Well this is a bit of a bugger. The cottage is less than a day from Rivendell, it would have been the perfect meeting spot. 

Back to the drawing board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in theory I will now be updating this twice a week, on Monday and Thursday. Provided it doesn't abandon me entirely. I'm sure Jimiel and Skyrere won't let that happen... Right?


	5. You Take The Smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing that Nori does upon arriving is take a room at the inn.

Nori and Briar part ways shortly after passing the cottage. Nori has no desire to go near it and try the patience of the old woman who lives there, especially as she watches the two of them pass suspiciously. Nori knows all too well how these things tend to go. She and Briar are no threat, but an elderly lady living alone will always have cause to fear travellers as they pass, even one this close to Rivendell. After all, if trolls are able to set up camp this close to the safe haven that is the Last Homely House Nori very much doubts that Elrond spends all that much time looking outside his borders. Briar’s map, which was given to her by her mother, very clearly shows the path into the valley and Nori parts ways with her there, promising to meet her at their campsite from the previous night in about six weeks. Even though Nori has had to teach Briar a great deal about surviving in the wild, and how to best defend herself from possible attack, she has also found a good friend in the hobbit. It has been enough to take her mind off the weighty decisions that still lie ahead of her and that is something that six weeks alone in the wilds south of Rivendell will not permit her to ignore any longer.

She heads to a place she knows well, a village roughly two and a half weeks south of the Hidden Valley. It is built not far from the remains of the elven settlement of Hollin, where those elves who were once allied closely with Durin’s folk in Khazad-dûm once lived. Much of the stone, to Nori’s eyes at least, seems to have been salvaged from that place in order to build the village. She is no stone smith, but dwarves tend to know stone as a rule. It’s important to be familiar with the material that tends to hang above your head on a daily basis. There is other evidence of elves here too, the people live longer and in better health, sometimes she sees an ear that is more pointed than the normally round shells of the ears of Men, no doubt the descendants of some elf or another who took a Man for a spouse and whose children continued to marry among Men. 

Aside from the obvious remnants of elf-blood the village is much like any other that pops up on the caravan routes, while there is little in the way of accommodation in the inn, there is a large taproom to cater for sudden influxes of Men and dwarves on the road. Two fields just past the boundaries of the village proper, have been left unused, the grass there churned up as the result of a recent caravan passing through. The Men here are wary, in part due to the number of people who pass through regularly and in part because they are close enough to the mountains for raiding parties of orcs and goblins to occasionally make their way into the lowlands nearby. Nori likes the village, however, for all the evidence of elves that is littered around the place. The people are wary, but that wariness has never descended into the complete suspicion of strangers that is so common in other places. It is also a good place to gather information about the roads and the goings on of the places that the caravans pass through. She even gets information about the events in Ered Luin due to the few dwarven occupants of the town, mostly those who have settled here with Women or Men. Children of such unions are rare, but even now she sees a couple of children with the lightly bearded cheeks and stocky build that indicates dwarf blood. 

The first thing that Nori does upon arriving is take a room at the inn. She is on her own and she is a semi familiar face to the innkeeper, who watches her with typical wariness but does not deny her a room. She is known enough in this place that they know she has the coin to pay for her stay, it is a rare treat but Nori likes being on the right side of the laws in this place, it is worth it just to be able to get information out of the people here and to have a place where she can relax for a while. It always leaves her purse lighter than she would like, but a lighter purse is worth having a place to hide sometimes. Once she has a room she requests that a bath be brought up, if there is one thing a dwarf likes almost as much as ale and a good fight it is getting clean after a long dirty day or journey.

The quiet also means that she no longer has anything to help her run from the memories of Erebor and the battle to keep the mountain. Nori would not have been able to move around the world as much as she has without seeing horrors. It is an unfortunate fact that while orcs might be the darkest thing out there, they are not the only race  _ capable _ of darkness. She lounges in the hot water for as long as she can while she thinks about the battle. It has been her way for a while when a fight cannot be avoided to take some time to think through it and examine what mistakes she might have made in the lead up to it. Thoughts of the battle make her think about the quest. Now that she has a moment, when the grief is not so intense and her other concerns are somewhat moot, she is able to see all the little clues about Azog being out to get them that she missed in the year running up to their departure from Thorin’s Halls and throughout the quest itself. She  _ should _ have seen it, she realises with a bitten off curse. Both she and Dwalin  _ should _ have reasoned that there was more to what was happening than they had, but she will never agree that they missed it because they were too wrapped up in  _ each other _ .

Truth be told, Nori had wanted nothing to do with the quest as soon as Thorin had approached her asking for her to join in support. It had felt like a bad idea from the start and it felt like an even worse one when she found out about Gandalf’s involvement. Whether she gets involved or not this time, it is still a monumentally bad idea to go about it the way that they did. Now that she knows about the orc armies that were obviously prepared to converge on Erebor well in advance she knows that there is no way they can allow them to approach Smaug, although she could hope that the dragon would fry them all, they cannot risk an alliance. She does not want to go again, she will probably end up having to and likely for the same reason as she did the first time.

Nori had not joined because Thorin asked her. She had not joined for the share of the treasure either, although that certainly had been a draw. Her courtship with Dwalin had been new in those days, too new for her to simply follow him in an insane bid to take back a mountain that had never been her home. She had gone because Dís asked it of her, not for Thorin, for her sons. Fíli had followed his uncle and father in his craft, and was well on his way to becoming a blacksmith of some renown. His blades were already highly sought after and the collection that the Mirkwood elves had found in his possession had been only a fraction of the blades he owned. Kíli on the other hand. She sighed. As far as the dwarves of Ered Luin were concerned Kíli was one of the rare dwarves who did not seem to have a craft. It was sad, especially in a member of the royal family, but as far as Nori was concerned, however… well, it took one to know one, and Thorin had been furious when he had discovered what Nori had already known.

Kíli was not quite destined to be a thief, but with a little training he would have been able to protect Fíli in ways that no king had ever considered allowing a member of their family to do. In a way that Thorin had forbidden him to do. Nori had often wished that she had kept her mouth shut when she had realised that Kíli would walk a similar path to her own. Thorin’s refusal to allow his sister’s son to be trained had been a source of contention between him and Dís. Nori had been forbidden from even mentioning it to Kíli, aside from teaching him and his brother a few tricks, and so her decision to join the quest had been as much about the two lads as it had been about Dwalin. It had been Nori’s hope that she would get the chance to teach them both a few extra tricks. Perhaps if she had they might have survived the battle.

Maybe Dwalin was not the only one who chose duty to the line of Durin before courtship after all.

Turns out that they may not be all that different.

Not that this realisation means she can forgive Dwalin for using his grief to push her away, regardless of the fact that he has not done it yet. Whether he will ever get the opportunity is another matter entirely. She has always known that the loss of Thráin has weighed heavily on Dwalin’s mind. He and Balin were there after all, they were among the youngest members of that particular party and no blame on the matter was ever assigned to them. That has not changed the blame that Dwalin has long taken upon himself, in part because he was there to see the way that the news of his father’s disappearance affected Thorin, and so the fact that he felt the loss of Fíli, Kíli and Thorin all in one go so very keenly should have been something she had seen coming a mile away. Perhaps she would have, had she not been so wrapped up in her own grief. Perhaps she would even have considered the fact that he would push her away as a result of it, but for the fact that she felt her own failure as well.

As far as failures go, this is the first time that she has really been hit by one. Most of the time she will examine where she went wrong and then let the whole mess go. Even when the mess involves the loss of a friend. Why this particular failure has hit her so hard she has no idea. Perhaps it is simply because Kíli would have been her apprentice of sorts if Thorin had pulled his head out of his ass, perhaps it is because she had become fond of the lads even though she knows that she should not have. Perhaps it is simply that she took the risk of opening her heart to Dwalin and he tore it up and threw it back at her. Nori can cope with failure. She has never liked looking foolish and Dwalin definitely made her feel like a fool. She would be an idiot to give him the chance to do so again.

She thinks until the water turns cold, then clambers from the tub and pulls on the cleanest of her clothes. None of this has helped her to work out what she will do in fourteen years when the chance to reclaim Erebor comes round again. If it were just for Dwalin’s sake that she had gone she would know her answer already. Dwalin turned his back on her in the future, so the Dwalin of today will not be given the chance to hurt her again. Except she did not go for Dwalin. She went for Fíli, to a degree, but mostly for Kíli, Dori and Ori. And she has already made her first mistake in spending the last couple of months with Briar. She could no more allow Briar to go with no one to watch her back than she could allow it of Ori. It is on a similar level of stupidity as developing affection for a mark as far as Nori is concerned and she kicks herself for it. 

Then again, she has nearly fourteen years yet, she may still come to her senses. Especially if she stays away from Ered Luin for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed this one, it was a nice little trip into Nori's head. She isn't the Nori of Wild Magic, but she will certainly have her moments later. See you Monday!


	6. When Will I See You Again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Mistress Baggins told our father you would say something to that effect.”

Nori leaves the village with a heavily stocked pack, a well rested pack pony, a significantly lighter purse, and a great deal to think about still. Weeks alone and a much needed few days of personal pampering have done wonders for restoring her spirits. She still does not feel completely herself, but she thinks she could probably make it into Thorin’s Halls without running to the small palace which houses the royal family and bursting into tears. Or stabbing Dwalin in the face, it depends a little bit on who she sees first. She is careful as she heads north, even though it is early summer there is always the possibility of orcs coming out of the mountains. 

Much to her surprise she is eager to see Briar again. They parted on good terms and certainly the hobbit lass is much better company than Nori had thought she would be. The time away from her has enabled the dwarf to reconcile to two versions of the hobbit she knows in her mind. The version she is most familiar with was older and isolated in more ways than one and Nori has caught herself expecting _that_ hobbit to respond to a comment more than once. This Briar is so open and trusting that Nori simultaneously wants to rage at her that the world is a dark and horrible place, for the most part, and then drag her away somewhere warm and comfortable and allow the hobbit to live happily in her safe world. It has been fun, surprisingly so, and she is looking forward to the trip back to the Shire. 

Idly, she wonders if Briar has kept up with the minimal training that Nori has been able to give her as she said she would.

Nori is about a day away from the agreed meeting place when she hears the light voice of an elf calling to her. She pauses. She has little love of elves, as is the case with most of her kind, but her experiences in Mirkwood has made her care for them even less than she did at this part of her life. It has also taught her, however, that it costs nothing at all to be civil to them, at least until they turn around and betray her anyway. It is probably a little harsh of her to tar all elves with the same brush as those of Mirkwood, but wariness has never served her poorly.

“Hail and well met!” One of the elves says as he draws closer. 

She looks up. And up. And up. Bastard has not even seen fit to get down from his horse, although he and his companion have removed their helmets as they smile genially down at her. To many dwarves, most elves look pretty much the same, with the sharp features, blue eyes and smoothly youthful skin that is typical of their race. Nori, however, has long learnt to look for the little differences in the people around her, which includes elves even if she hates to admit it. These too are eerily similar. If elves grew beards the pair could use one another for shaving mirrors. Twins. 

“I’d say the same,” Nori replies as she pauses, glaring up at them as she fingers the hilt of the knife up her sleeve, “but for the fact that you’ve accosted me without the manners to get down off your horses.”

“A dwarf interested in manners!” The other chortles, even as the pair of them swing down. 

They are still unnaturally tall, most elves being even taller than Men are, but it is less uncomfortable to look at them now as she glowers silently, now able to tilt her chin back down so that she is only using her eyes to look up. This is something that all dwarves do when confronted with potentially hostile taller folk. Tilting their head back is seen as a sign of weakness before the larger races and while among a large group Nori has no problem looking _up_ if it might give her, or the group, an advantage. Alone, however, she knows that she needs to give the impression of strength. So she scowls up defiantly as she waits for them to tell her why they have decided to stop her.

“Our father has asked that we keep an eye out for a lone dwarf,” one of them speaks after a moment, his voice mild. “Said dwarf is contracted to escort a guest of ours to her home and he was reluctant to allow her to leave unless he could be certain that her escort would be there to meet her.”

“And who is your father to dictate how his guests might come and go?” Nori challenges, although she has a feeling she knows who it is.

“Why, the Lord of Rivendell himself,” the other replies.

“Naturally,” Nori huffs, “but does your father truly have the power to control who _leaves_ his home?” She already knows the answer to that, Elrond is the master of his home in a way that few can claim to be.

“If he feels it is in the best interests of his guests, he can suggest they remain until a better time,” the first shrugs, even that gesture is almost sickeningly graceful. “However, if you are not the dwarf we seek…”

“I am Briar Baggins’ contracted escort,” Nori huffs and the twin elves both smile at her. “But no matter _what_ your father might think I will not be entering Rivendell. I am not, as a rule, fond of elves. My presence in the acclaimed peace of his home would be disruptive at best. You can assure Briar that I will meet her at the agreed place tomorrow.” 

“Our father would prefer that you come into the valley,” they object.

“Yes,” Nori shrugs, “well, I am certain that your father has experienced a number of disappointments in his long life, and I’m also fairly sure that a large number of them have been as a result of the two of you.” She smirks, not sure whether her statement is entirely accurate although there is a slight flicker at the corners of their eyes that hints at the fact that she may have stumbled onto something. “I’m sure he will survive one more.”

Dori likes to think that Nori is only capable of being completely uncouth when she opens her mouth with an aim to be insulting. Which, in Ered Luin, is generally true. Hobbits enjoy a well turned insult she knows, Briar had muttered some truly spectacular ones during the quest which had flown by Thorin completely a lot of the time but which had caused Dori to stare at her with wide eyes. Nori, however, _does_ quite enjoy the occasional play of words, whether it is to be deliberately crude, a little more discrete with it, or to hide an insult in plain sight. She does not enjoy it as much as the hobbits do, but she would probably be dead ten times over by now due to the sharpness of her tongue if she had not learnt how to turn a comment in such a way. Sometimes it is better to avoid a fight. 

To her surprise, the twin elves chuckle. 

“Mistress Baggins told our father you would say something to that effect,” one chortles. “She clearly knows you well.”

“Our only other companion for seven weeks or so was a pony,” Nori informs him, gesturing to the pack pony just behind her. “They aren’t known to be the most stimulating conversationalists, and they generally have a piss poor sense of humour.” She starts walking again. “Tell Briar I’ll meet her at the agreed point within the week,” she says as she goes. 

For a moment she thinks that the twin elves might follow and attempt to insist that she make her way into Rivendell with them. Unlike Thranduil and his spawn, however, they seem perfectly happy to allow her to continue on her way. She is more surprised than she suspects that she should be. No matter what else she has experienced of elves she has still heard of the legendary hospitality of the Lord of Rivendell. Her personal experience is that it was somewhat lacking when the Company arrived during the quest, but she supposes that the surprise of their arrival could have accounted for some of that. It is not long until the sound of hooves fades into the distance and she is alone with the pony once more.

“I suppose I’ll have to name you if I keep you,” Nori comments, “or make sure Briar does it if she plans to hold on to you. She won’t be able to keep enough supplies for her appetite if she doesn’t.” The pony does not reply, then again she did not expect him to.

Instead, as she walks, she thinks about what her very next step will be. Once she has taken Briar back to the Shire she needs to decide whether or not she wants to return to her family in Ered Luin. Part of her craves Dori and Ori’s presence in her life again. Her relationship with Dori improved massively on the road to Erebor and it is painful to think of the way that it was during these years, and even while she was working for Thorin, where her craft and path made her brother hold her at a distance so that he could avoid the negative association. Then there is Dwalin. She misses him even though she tells herself that she should not. She misses the strength of his arms at night and the warmth of him when they lie close. She misses the deep rumble of his voice and the way that he will teasingly whisper _thief_ in her ear in passing. 

She finds herself sincerely hoping that Elrond will not encourage Briar to stay longer, especially when it begins to rain. As miserable as a journey begun in the rain is, Nori knows that the trip home alone will be worse and there is no chance that she will go into Rivendell to wait there for Briar like a dog with her tail between her legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is shorter. I honestly had other plans for it, but apparently the twins wanted to make a cameo and that felt like the right place to end it all. So there they are. See you on Thursday for the next chapter of this, and tomorrow for the next chapter of Jewel of Durin!


	7. Ride With The Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They spend their days on the way back to the Shire in much the same way as they did on the way to Rivendell.

Briar does meet Nori the following afternoon. It is late enough that they will not get far that day, but Nori decides to move them on anyway and the hobbit does not object to it at all. They only get a few hours of walking in before night begins to fall and while they walk Briar tells Nori everything about Rivendell. 

Much of it the dwarf already knows from her own trip there. There is something about hearing it from the perspective of one who is of another race, however. Briar describes Rivendell as something far more grand and magical than the place that Nori remembers. It makes her wonder what impression the dark halls of Ered Luin would make upon her. Much of the dwarven settlement there is still under the mountain, although her people have begun to spread over the outside as the tunnels have started to move into the fragile stone that still creaks and settles after the events of the War of Wrath. This is not so much due to the growth of their population, although the addition of many of the dwarves from Erebor has certainly had an effect. It is more due to the fact that their mining efforts, increased by the larger population, has placed a greater strain on the stone and made ever increasing areas unstable. It is a risk in every mountain home, and one of the reasons that many settlements under the mountains are kept so close to the outside even though the dwarves live under and long for the stone. It is one of the reasons that so many survived Smaug’s attack on Erebor, even though so many were killed in the initial strike.

The part of Ered Luin known as Thorin's Halls _are_ Nori's home, however. She was born and raised there and part of her desperately wants to show them to Briar and hear how this dwarven home, the bones of which date back to a time before the sun, compares to this floating and dainty elven settlement. It is a strange thing to want the approval of another aside from Dwalin, but for some reason the seven weeks that they spent together on the road has caused Nori to see this Briar in a different light to the way that she had thought of the one on the quest. The Briar on the quest was a loyal companion, even if she made a seriously questionable decision on how to deal with Thorin’s slip into gold madness, but Nori never really became close to her. This Briar, however, has spent several weeks on the road alone with the dwarf and has been open to learning all she might need to know to survive such a trip. This Briar is someone that Nori would dare to consider a close friend and it is oddly touching that she would come and join the thief so readily and eagerly, especially when the hobbit’s account of her time in Rivendell makes it sound like a greater wonder than the long trip back to the Shire will prove to be.

“It was beautiful,” Briar concludes after a while, “and _so_ peaceful, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t somewhere I could see myself spending the rest of my life, or any great period of time. The Shire is peaceful enough in its own way, but there is more noise and life there than I saw in Rivendell. The elves have their humour and their stories but it is a distant thing. Their joy is quieter and more restrained. It is a healing place, and would likely do my mother some good, but it is not the place for me.”

They have paused for the night now and Nori is already stretching in preparation for the two of them to continue with the hobbit’s lessons in defense. She stops for a moment and looks at Briar closely. The lass definitely appears more at peace, and certainly far more cheerful than she was when they had met in Bree, but there is a slight tightness about her eyes still and Nori wonders at it. It is not quite grief, she has seen raw and agonising grief on this hobbit’s face in another life. Instead of enquiring Nori lets the matter drop. At this point in time there is no need to analyse everything that the hobbit says and does. It has no impact on Thorin and the Company now, and she rather doubts that Briar would even consider betraying or misleading someone. At least, _this_ Briar would not.

They spend their days on the way back to the Shire in much the same way as they did on the way to Rivendell. They walk and share stories, Nori tests Briar’s aim with stones and a small kernel of an idea begins to form in her mind if only she can find an excuse to spend more time with Briar training her. The hobbit’s thoughts on Rivendell, however, make Nori wonder if she will bother to leave the Shire again. While her first trip out had been infinitely better in this lifetime than in the one that Nori has not long left, it does not seem to have inspired her all that much either. What _does_ seem to have settled into the hobbit’s mind as something she finds enjoyable is the style of fighting that Nori has been teaching her. It is oddly satisfying to see Briar’s confidence grow with every passing evening as she gets better and better at landing and avoiding blows. Since Briar is tiny, and will never get any larger, Nori concentrates on teaching her any tricks she knows that will allow her to fell larger foes, whether to pin them in place if they might be a potential ally or slaughter them if a known enemy. Orcs may still be beyond her ability in anything more than a slash and dash or ranged attack, but honestly if Briar is ever at the point where she is trying to grapple with orcs things will have gone far more terribly wrong than Nori could have imagined. Briar knows that if they encounter orcs she needs to hide and let Nori handle things. 

“What's your home like?” Briar asks one evening as they relax by the fire and sip from their waterskins as they catch their breath. 

“My home?” Nori blinks.

“Well I’ve told you about mine,” Briar explains, “and I’ve given my thoughts on Rivendell, but you hardly talk about where you come from really. You talk about your brothers, but what about your friends?”

“I don’t have many friends,” Nori shrugs, “you don’t tend to make that many of them in my line of work. Those I have I don’t see all that often."

"What is your line of work?" The hobbit tilts her head, a loose curl blowing in the light summer breeze. "I've been trying to work it out but you never give any hint of it."

"Mostly I'm a thief," the dwarf shrugs. "Sometimes I'm a knife for hire and I’m very good at ferreting out information that people might not necessarily want me to get hold of. Occasionally I'll work with a group, mostly I work alone.” She takes in Briar’s slightly horrified expression. “Rule one of thieving, lass, never tell a mark you’re a thief. You hired me to take you to Rivendell and back, I’m a hired knife and I know better than to steal from my employers. And I certainly don’t steal from those I consider a friend.”

Briar looks surprised.

“Friends?” She repeats. 

“Well,” Nori tilts her head slightly, “you’ve hardly treated me as you would if I were simply in your employ. I would think of you as a friend.”

“I would like that,” Briar smiles. “I don’t have all that many friends in the Shire either to own the truth.”

“But you speak of so many others,” Nori objects, “I thought you had dozens of friends.”

“Dozens of cousins,” Briar corrects, “my mother is one of twelve, although only ten of them ever married, and my father was one of six. All married. So I have a great many cousins on both sides, as well as second cousins and other relations who are slightly more distant but are nonetheless family it’s beneficial to maintain close contact with. As far as people I could consider true friends though… there are not that many I would give that level of trust.” She examines her hands and Nori can see a bruise blossoming on her wrist where she caught a strike awkwardly. “My father was relatively wealthy, although I admit that a great deal of the money that he spent on building my home came from my mother, but he also invested a large portion of it very wisely in other small properties and some farmland which he then rented out for good returns. I am his only daughter and when my mother passes all of my parents’ wealth will be mine. It is no secret in the Shire, everyone likes to poke into the business of all the rest.”

“So a lot of those you would consider friends have only been after your coin,” Nori concludes.

“And those who are not are either from my own family, and far enough away that all I can do to maintain a relationship is exchange letters and visit for a few weeks every few months, or do not necessarily share my interests,” Briar sighs. “My father was a Baggins, solid, sensible, as unmoving as the stone. My mother is a Took, wild, carefree, flighty as the birds in the sky. I take after her more than him. Father was a proper hobbit. My mother… my mother not so much. But that’s always been the way with the Tooks.”

It sounds lonely, Nori thinks even though she does not say it. She had known that the older Briar was desperately alone, so alone that if the other inhabitants of the Shire had noticed the strangeness of a dozen dwarves turning up at her door late one evening none had ever bothered to come and check up on her. Unless such a thing had happened without Nori’s notice but that would be unusual enough given her line of work. It seems that the young Briar is almost as lonely as her older self. 

“It sounds as though the Shire isn’t really the best home for you,” Nori comments. Briar laughs.

“Where else would I go?” She responds. “As you pointed out earlier, hobbits don’t really leave the Shire.”

“Doesn’t mean you have to stay,” Nori points out. “Why not come to Ered Luin next spring?” The impulsive question takes even her off guard but she does not regret asking it once it has been asked. Nori often hides her true self from those around her, even the Briar of her past who was considered a friend never saw much past the superficial personality with impulse control that Nori often wears. Only Dwalin and her brothers have seen the deeper her, and now she has apparently decided to show it to this younger Briar.

Besides, it would be a shame to let all this training go to waste, especially if she can find someone to make the equipment Briar will need to make her all the more effective. The hobbit has a truly impressive aim. Briar’s wide smile, utterly guileless in a way that Nori doubts she has seen on any other person, is all the answer that the dwarf needs to her question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if I fall behind on Monday's chapter that would be because the computer I would normally use to write while supervising the kids homework/dinner has decided to pitch a fit. Which means that I can only write on the gigantic beast of a computer in my office that I try to avoid firing up unless it's for studying or D&D (I know, weird priorities) and that I can't really run while the children are awake due to needing to supervise and hear what they're up to. Especially given my office is in a more isolated part of the house.


	8. Long Ago, Far Away...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dori looks up from his work when she enters the small shop

Nori leaves Briar in Bree, although she is oddly reluctant to part from her friend again she knows that she needs to tell Dori that they will have a guest for the spring and early summer rather than just turn up with the hobbit lass. She might have done it once, avoided Dori all winter and taken Briar up on the offer to stay in the Shire for a time before escorting her friend to Ered Luin and arriving unannounced an unexpected, but for the fact that she understands the disrespect that comes with such an action that much better now. Besides, she knows that Briar would refuse to impose upon Dori if she thought for a moment that the other dwarf had not been aware of her arrival. 

It’s amazing to think that she has been so altered by the hobbit already when there was a time that she would not have cared either way. 

Her approach home is tinged with bitterness. She knows that when she walks into the part of the mountains which house Thorin’s Halls she will be assaulted with familiar sounds, smells and faces. She will walk past people she once knew and that there is every likelihood that she will run into a member of the Company or a friend from the life she had been building in the twelve years that she had worked for Thorin. They will not know her now, unless it is someone from her life before that time, but it is not until she pauses to let several guards pass her that the true agony of this change hits her. One of the guards is Dwalin and he glances at her, looks her over as though he is trying to place her, then turns his gaze from her and continues to walk down the street, his hand hooked into his belt as he talks in a low voice with his companions. Dwalin is not part of the city guard, he does not have daily contact with the lower areas and thieves, in particular, are generally something that the city guard focuses on. Nori only came to Thorin’s attention because she came into possession of some information she thought he might want by picking the pocket of a trader from one of the Mannish cities. For a moment her chest goes impossibly tight at the way that Dwalin simply dismisses her existence, then she sees him glance back over his shoulder and she forces herself to move away at a normal pace so that she does not draw any undue attention to herself. 

She hurries to the small house she shares with Dori and Ori, having to correct her steps more than once when she allows her distraction to start taking her in the direction of the street that Dori had moved them all to when Nori had started to bring in more coin. She knows that she needs to focus more, although she is known enough to the thieves of the city that only a new recruit would attempt to steal from her, it does not mean that no one will try to jump her anyway. She has few friends, but she has more than her share of enemies. She needs to watch her back and that is not something that changed after she started to work for Thorin. She is under no illusion that it will still be the case now.

Dori looks up from his work when she enters the small shop, his face pulling into scowl when he sees her.

“Finally decided to crawl back, I see,” he snips and where it might once have stung to see him so angry with her now Nori just wants to rush into his arms and tell him everything that she has experienced in the last year. This Dori, however, would only be suspicious of that at this time of his life. Their relationship will mend in the coming years, but right now he is still wary and upset with the way that his sister has taken to living her life.

“Missed you too, fusspot,” she replies, chucking half of the gold that Briar had paid her before they parted onto the table in front of him. “Don’t get your beard in a knot,” she adds when he turns his scowl upon it, “it was earned legitimately. I’ve been playing guide.”

“Thieving stopped paying, did it?” Dori demands.

“Pays as well as ever,” Nori shrugs, still wanting the comfort of her brother as the thought of Dwalin and everything she has lost, and may yet gain if she decides to take the path once more, continues to plague her mind. “But I decided I wanted to try something different.” Dori raises his eyebrows. “Kern left for the Iron Hills, I was thinking about my next step and I met a hobbit lass who wanted a guide to Rivendell.”

“ _ You _ visited the elves?” Dori almost squeeks. Nori laughs.

“I was tempted, if just to see how much I could walk out of there with,” Nori lies, “but I decided to go a bit further south and clear my head a bit. With Kern gone I’m at a loose end for a bit.”

“As long as you don’t bring the guard storming in here,” Dori sighs. “It’s bad for business.”

“Briar paid me enough to see me through winter without having to resort to picking too many pockets,” she grins, “and she’ll pay me more when I go to escort her back here for the summer.”

There is a moment of silence as Dori places a few more stitches, then his needle slips and he curses as it sinks into his finger before he looks up at her.

“Here?” He asks.

“She wants to see the world outside the Shire,” Nori smirks. “Now that she’s had the opportunity to be bored to tears by the elves I thought it would be good for her to see how much fun  _ we _ are.”

“And where will she be staying?” Dori enquires. 

“With us,” she informs him. “We have the room if Ori is still staying with his master.”

“He is,” Dori sighs. “But why with us? This is hardly the place for a young lady who wishes to see the sights.”

“She trusts me.”

“That doesn’t speak all that highly of her judgement, quite honestly,” Dori interrupts. Nori sticks her tongue out at him.

“I earned that trust from her,” she bites at the jibe, but the familiarity of it is comforting. Dori snorts. “Think what you like, she knows about my craft and trust me anyway.”

“How you can call that a craft I know not,” Dori huffs.

“It’s what I’m called to and what I’m good at,” Nori shrugs, this is not a new conversation after all, “and it is not enough of a deterrent to Briar to make her think we should alter our association. If you would rather I didn’t bring her here, let me know and I’ll look into my own accommodations, it’s time I got my own place anyway.” 

“Move  _ out _ ?” Dori squawks and she bites her lips to hide a smile.

“I’m old enough,” Nori shrugs, “and I’m tired of being told not to bring trouble here to be honest. I haven’t brought trouble back to your house since that first time. I promised I wouldn’t do it again. I keep those, you know that.”

It has only happened once, back when she was starting out and she accidentally drew a group of annoyed mercenaries to the home she shares with Dori and Ori. It had not been pretty, although fortunately they had managed to get out of it by the skin of their teeth and with very little in the way of bodily harm. 

“I know,” Dori gets to his feet and comes around his desk, opening his arms in a gesture of peace and Nori gratefully accepts the offer of an embrace. She clings to him tightly, certainly tighter than she has since she was a young child, and she hears him make a concerned noise. “Has something happened?” He asks.

“Nothing,” Nori lies. “Nothing that you can do anything about anyway.” She adds, knowing that Dori has always been able to see through most of her lies.

“I missed you while you were gone,” Dori tells her, although he does not let her go, waiting for her to move away of her own accord. 

“No you didn’t,” Nori grins and he huffs a laugh, letting her pull away. “But thank you for trying.” And she  _ is _ grateful for that effort. He may not really have missed her, but she knows that he still worries even after all these years of watching her get in and out of various scrapes.

“Your friend can stay, of course,” Dori adds after a moment of thought. “It makes no sense at all for you to spend whatever you bring in on an apartment of your own for the sake of a visitor, whether they are paying you or not.”

“You’ll like her,” Nori assures her brother. “She’s polite, has the kind of manners that would put yours to shame, and I think she needs more friends than she wants to admit. It would do her some good to meet you, and give you someone more worthwhile to fuss over than me.”

“I never believed that you would bring someone for me to ‘ _ mother _ ’,” Dori observes, his lips tilting up in amusement. Nori shrugs. “Well, I can hardly say ‘no’ after that ringing endorsement, can I?” He sighs. “Ori has moved in above his craft-master’s shop, he says he wants it, but I wonder if Hivar isn’t taking advantage of the fact that Ori lives there to have him working longer hours than he should as an apprentice.”

“I’ll look into it,” Nori promises. She can, and Dori knows it because she has been discretely watching over Ori and others they hold dear for years. It’s one of the reasons that none of the thieves ever target any house that the three of them might inhabit. She does not remember Ori having moved out the last time she lived this, however, and she wonders if the fact that she has been away the last six months when the last time she had come home has played a part in that.

“He won’t thank you for it,” Dori points out.

“He doesn’t have to know unless we decide to do something about it,” Nori shakes her head. In the back of her mind, however, she begins to worry about what this might mean for the future. Her trip out of Ered Luin, though not part of her original timeline, had been short in comparison to some of the others she has taken over the years. If only six months has had a drastic enough effect to allow Ori to move out, what else might it do?

“I think your absence has been good for him,” Dori admits after a moment of thought. “And perhaps for me as well. Ori has done well enough on his own. It might be time to let him make his own mistakes.”

“It was time for that a long time ago,” Nori points out. “We both know that.”

“Can you blame me? With the way you turned out?” Dori asks her. “Raising the two of you was never easy and you did not make it any easier.”

“I know,” Nori sighs, “I’m sorry.” She’s had time to think about that as well. “I can’t help what Mahal made me into, Dori, and I don’t intend to try either.” Her brother settles back with his work.

“One day, I will be able to accept that,” he tells her. 

She scowls, because how much more time could he need?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit earlier than usual tonight, I have a lot to achieve once the kids are in bed.


	9. A Shadow On Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori would be a fool to open herself to trusting him

Nori struggles to settle back into her routine around Ered Luin from fourteen years before the quest. Not only is it a role that she no longer has any real interest in filling, having discovered that she is less called to the thieving aspect of her craft and more called to the spying side of things, but there is also the fact that many things seem to have changed this second time around. Ori has moved out, and she spends several days establishing the fact that her brother is not being taken advantage of, he just likes to continue a piece until he has reached the better point to stop. He just loses track of time, although she does not tell Dori that. Ori just won his freedom from their occasionally overbearing brother, he does not need to have Dori storming over at dinner time every evening to make sure that he finishes at the right time. 

She stays in practice enough to pick the odd pocket, lift the occasional thing from a stall somewhere, climbing buildings and keeping as unnoticed and out of sight as possible. All of them are skills that she needs to keep sharp, and it entertains her while keeping her purse from running too empty as she runs other errands. Besides, practicing her ducking, dodging and clambering skills keeps her out of sight of Dwalin, who is in her part of town more often than she recalls him being the first time that she lived these years. Or perhaps she simply notices him more now that his future self has broken her heart. 

She should keep away from him, Nori knows it, but she finds herself slipping into the tavern he prefers on more than one occasion. It is one that is patronised by the wealthier among them, and she justifies it to herself by treating herself to something new to wear so that she can pick pockets there without being suspected. She does quite well for herself during the weeks where she watches Dwalin and his friends drink, easily lifting enough to allow her to order a new set of throwing blades from one of the local smiths.

She does not just lift purses while she is in the bar. She lifts the odd piece of jewellery and the occasional weapon. While never as drunk as she appears, she will sometimes allow one dwarf or another to take her home with them. She feels a twinge of guilt about it, even though she really should not, the Dwalin of the future turned his back on her, the Dwalin of now has no idea who she is. He will not care that she has turned to other dwarves for comfort, even if it feels empty and hollow enough that it hardly seems worth it. Her mistake comes when she has a few more drinks than she intends to one night and rather than approaching the large blond dwarf Dwalin is talking to she finds her gaze lingering on the burly guard instead. This is not the first time she has watched him, nor is it entirely unusual to find him watching her, no matter what his future self did to her it would seem that she is as drawn to him as ever. 

Nori would be a fool to open herself to trusting him again, but there is a part of her that wants to all the same.

She should not be surprised that Dwalin is the one who approaches her, but she is and Nori finds herself frozen in place as she reaches for her tankard of ale and takes a large gulp to settle her sudden nerves. He settles in the open seat opposite her, one that she uses her foot to push back from the table in automatic invitation. She should leave, but she cannot help herself either. The future Dwalin hurt her, and it takes every ounce of self control that she has to keep herself from screaming obscenities at him and demanding answers. This Dwalin could not possibly know. She should walk away.

She stays.

They talk, they drink, she carefully avoids stories that might tell him too much about who she is and was. He seems to stick to stories of battle that avoid his close ties with the line of Durin, she sticks to tales of her time on the road with various others or alone. By the time the dwarf who owns the tavern calls closing time, on account of him needing to sleep as well, the very same heavy promise that has always floated between the thief and the guard is there and as powerful as ever. She has drunk more than she should, she misses him, and she does not resist the kiss as they leave the tavern. She clings to him tightly, the kiss so familiar and needed that for a moment she can forget what his future self will do. She sways when they part and he looks down at her with dark eyes, gaging her reaction for a moment.

“Where are you staying, lass?” He asks after a beat, the rasp of his voice making her shiver.

“At my brother’s,” she breathes, “we can’t go there.” Dori is a light sleeper and while he rarely worries when she does not come back at night, he gets upset when she brings others home with her. 

“We can’t,” Dwalin agrees, “but I’ll be taking you there all the same.” She glares up at him. “You matched me drink for drink, lass,” he points out. “And I’m not the sort to have a lass when she’s at least half as drunk as me.” Nori silently curses herself for forgetting this detail about Dwalin, he is a good dwarf and always has been. Too good for the likes of her really and in her anger at his future self she had forgotten just how beyond her he should always have been. “I’m taking you home.”

“I can take myself home,” Nori spits angrily, irrationally furious at the fact that he is turning from her again when the reason for it this time is far better than his reasons on the walls of Erebor. 

“Maybe you can,” Dwalin agrees, “but I would like to know where to find you so that we can try this again with  _ less _ beer in our bellies.”

“If you didn’t want to go home with me why did you bother approaching?” Nori snarls.

“Oh, I  _ want _ to,” Dwalin tells her, “I wanted to, but I didn’t count on you being so easy to talk and drink with. I won’t ask it of you now.”

“You only get one chance with me,” Nori tosses her head, “it’s either now or never.”

“I see,” Dwalin sighs. “Well, perhaps one day we will meet again when we are both a little more open to bending our personal rules.” She stares up at him. “Are you certain you will not allow me to take you home?”

“I can take care of myself,” she replies. “See you round, guard.” She waves and turns away from him, only to pause when his hand grabs her arm.

“Can I at least know the name of the lass with the amethyst eyes?” He asks her.

“How should I know?” Nori demands.

“I figured you would know your own name,” Dwalin shrugs. “If you don’t want to give it to me just say.”

“You haven’t earned it,” Nori says as she turns her back to hide her bafflement. Her eyes are green, they have always been green, so she has no idea what Dwalin means by ‘ _ amethyst eyes _ ’.

This time he lets her leave and she makes her way back through town slowly, her arms wrapped around her torso, and her head swirling. The pleasant effect of the alcohol on her mind has receded at this point, lost in the sick realisation that she had nearly welcomed Dwalin back into her bed without a thought. She had promised herself that she would not do that. It just shows how deeply under her skin the Dwalin of the future managed to crawl. She needs to get over this, she needs to get over him, and perhaps coming home was a mistake after all. Nori thinks it over as she meanders back to the apartment, closing the door with a little more force than she intends simply due to how annoyed she is with herself. Dori peers out of his bedroom as she stomps past, his eyes bleary and his expression one of annoyance until he gets a good look at her face. 

“What happened?” He asks. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt,” she snarls, “don’t start fussing. I just got too close to getting something I can’t have.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dori shakes his head. “Not being able to have something hasn’t ever stopped you from trying before.”

“From experience it’s something that doesn’t end well for me,” Nori shakes her head. “I was stupid to come close to it in the first place.” Dori squints at her but does not ask anything further about it, he knows all too well what happens when he pries too deeply into secrets that she wants to keep.

“You’ll be leaving early, then?” He asks her.

“Think it might be best,” Nori agrees. “I’ll just get tempted again if I stay. It won’t hurt to get Briar a week or two early.” She begins to move past him then pauses and looks back at her brother with a frown. “Dori, what colour are my eyes?”

“Purple,” Dori shrugs, “the same as they’ve always been. I thought that was why you wanted the deep violet tunic this time.”

“Violet is better for hiding in dark corners,” Nori snorts. “I always thought they were green.”

“When you were a baby,” Dori’s gaze goes distant, “but they changed as you got older, I always thought it meant you were destined for something great but…” he shrugs it off, as though uncertain of his own memory, but Nori thinks that it explains a great deal about her brother’s attitude at times. Instead she bids her brother goodnight with a brief apology for waking him and hurries back to her room. 

The mirror in here is not the best mirror. She knows that her eyes were once green, even on the quest Dwalin would occasionally wax lyrical about the hard emeralds of her gaze. It had been corny, but also something that she had gained an odd amount of pleasure from. No former lover, not even Kern, had ever spoken of her in such a way. A proper look in the mirror now, the image spotted, discoloured, and wavy, shows that her eyes are not the shade she remembers seeing so many times in the past. It is hard to tell in this mirror, it is barely good enough for her to properly style her hair, but the colour of her eyes has definitely changed.

“Fucking Arkenstone,” she hisses, because it is the only thing that she can think of. Smashing the thing has sent her back into the past, and that does not appear to be the only thing that it has done. She dreads to think what else this might have done to her.

It is disturbing and probably something she should look into, although she very much doubts that the answers will be found in Ered Luin. Instead she quickly begins to pack the things she will need for her trip back to the Shire, including the new set of throwing knives. She has tested them, but they are not intended for her and so she has refrained from using them any further. Once she has done that she carefully removes her clothes and climbs into bed. She will handle supplies and the like in the morning, for now she needs to sleep and hope that she does not dream. She does not think she will be able to keep herself away from town if she dreams of Dwalin tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a little bit early (technically it's Thursday where I am in twenty minutes), but I can't sleep due to my tonsils being evil. I love the fact that they've chosen _now_ of all times to explore creating new life. Nasty things. But hey, chapter. And Nori just didn't seem to be able to stay away from Dwalin, as soon as she entered temptation distance she went for it. I can't help myself.


	10. Here I Go Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You must be Briar’s dwarf,” a hobbit woman says when the door is opened. “You’re early.”

Nori departs in the middle of the afternoon on swift feet. It would make more sense for her to wait until the following morning, but she does not trust herself as much as she usually would. As a rule, Nori generally has fairly good impulse control even though it does not seem like it to all those who have cause to encounter her. Where Dwalin is concerned, however, that control seems to go out the window and it would amuse her were the circumstances different. As it is, she hates that she cannot trust herself with being alone in the same town as him and she supposes that is what comes of finally allowing her heart to be touched after so many years of resisting it. If she was smart she would do herself the favour of never returning to Ered Luin after bringing Briar for a visit.

This is  _ not _ an area that Nori is known to be smart in. Mostly because she has so little experience with actually being in love. Nori knows dwarves who seem to fall in and out of love with the changing of the seasons, for a long time thought that Kíli might be one of them but his general flightyness seemed to be more due to the fact that he had no real craft than an uncertain heart. Those sorts of dwarves never marry, although they crave the closeness of another being as though it is a substitute for never having found their craft. In Kíli’s case, however, Nori suspects that it is more to do with not being  _ permitted _ to pursue his true craft rather than never finding it.

No king wants to admit that one of their heirs has a predisposition towards being a thief, spy, and assassin after all.

The fact that Nori is ninety percent certain that Kíli was supposed to be her apprentice is one of the other reasons that she is so quick to run from Ered Luin after her failed night with Dwalin. Letting the large guard back into her life, although it would be a first for him, will leave her in a position where she will have to find a way to convince Thorin and Dís to let her actually  _ train _ Kíli. She refuses to let him go off on that fool's quest again without proper training. Though Nori may never have shown it, mostly because she suspected that any affection towards Kíli on her part would have caused Thorin to not only terminate her employment but throw her from the mountains as well, she had been very fond of both of the lads and of Kíli in particular. 

It has come as a surprise that Briar is showing a similar aptitude. Not that it should have. Briar’s tiny stature means that she could only really excel at the kind of combat that  _ requires _ her to be either distant from the fight or dashing in and out. The kind of style that Nori and those like her tend to prefer. Not to mention that the tiny hobbit seems to be stronger and hardier than her size would make her seem. 

It turns out to be something of a racial trait, however, when Nori arrives in the Shire to see that many of the inhabitants there seem to be displaying the very same thing. On farms she passes she can see sheep, cows and pigs being herded and handled with ease, one hobbit farmer even lifts a lamb almost as big as he is without any apparent difficulty aside from that which stems from his size. They watch as she passes; some with narrowed eyes, others puffing on pipes and a few of them even looking at her with open curiosity. Fortunately, Nori’s memory is a good one, and Briar gives excellent directions anyway, so she finds her way to Hobbiton, and thus Bag End, with ease. 

The house,  _ smial  _ as Briar once called it, looks much the way that Nori remembers it. A path of irregularly shaped stones and steps runs up from the gate to the round green door with a bench part of the way up. The front section of garden has that neat wildness to it which shows that the plants which grow there have been placed and cared for in a manner which deliberately softens the artificial shapes of the garden and it is a welcoming thing rather than a sign of untidiness that could be off putting. The green door is chipped and peeling in places, obviously in need of a fresh coat of paint, and missing the glowing rune which had led the Company to Briar’s door. That should have been the first clue that Briar was not what the wizard had claimed really, no hobbit should know the rune magics that were such a closely guarded secret among Nori’s kind and they only knew the basics of it these days. The ability to make and identify Moon Runes, for example, had been lost for centuries. 

“You must be Briar’s dwarf,” a hobbit woman says when the door is opened. “You’re early.”

“Itchy feet,” Nori lies easily.

“Imagine how that feels for us,” the hobbit replies, gesturing to her own feet. Nori smiles. “Belladonna Baggins, a pleasure.” The hobbit is not as matronly as Nori might have expected, although she bears a powerful resemblance to her dark haired daughter so she could hardly have been mistaken for anything other than Briar’s mother. The lines about her eyes show a strong inclination to laughter, the streaks of grey in her hair betray her age and Nori finds herself wondering how long hobbits live.

“Nori, at your service,” she bows rather than asking the question. She has no desire to make anyone uneasy and she has a feeling that she will not much like the answer.

“Well, come in,” Belladonna steps to one side and waves Nori in. “Briar-Rose has gone to the market to fetch a few things, but I think she will be relieved to see you have come early. Poor dear needs to get out of the Shire again, although not for the same reason you seem to have come wandering.” She takes Nori’s pack and disappears down the corridor as the dwarf follows at an easy enough pace to allow her to take in the changes that will take place here once Bag End passes to Briar’s care. “This will be your room,” Belladonna says, seemingly unaware of the way that Nori is noting pictures she had not seen before the quest for Erebor and that the wooden floor has been covered with a soft rug which runs the length of this corridor. “It isn’t much, but I think Briar-Rose knew you would be early because she made it up two days ago. Or she’s wishing the time away. That Proudfoot boy is far too persistent for his own good.”

“Briar can handle him, I’m sure,” Nori says as she looks approvingly at the room, it is certainly far more welcoming than it will be in thirteen years or so. A quick look through Bag End that night had shown a large home mostly closed down, spare beds with sheets thrown over them and chests locked tightly shut piled almost haphazardly with other pieces of furniture that Briar, at some time in the future, will have found she had no need of. It is just another sign of the lonely future that this hobbit has in front of her and Nori wonders whether these trips away will make it worse or better when the time finally comes and Belladonna passes. 

“The tricks that you’ve taught her should come in useful,” Belladonna acknowledges. “She’s been diligent in her practice this winter, though I dare say you had not expected her to be.” 

Nori shrugs noncommittally. Briar has never struck her as the sort to want to waste time, whether that is the Briar of now or of the future, and she cannot imagine that would extend to the time she has spent learning to fight. Once Briar has begun to learn something Nori has seen her continue to learn it even in the face of great odds. Her early arrival, however, will allow her to teach her tiny friend a few new things before they move on to Thorin’s Halls. There are some tricks that it will be easier for Briar to learn if they stay in the same place for a few days.

“Where are my manners?” Belladonna exclaims suddenly. “You must be parched and half starved. Can I offer you some tea? Or would you prefer ale?”

“Ale, if you have it,” Nori replies, careful to keep her tone polite. She would worry less if it were Briar offering, the hobbit is accustomed to the rough edges that seem to come with travelling with her, but Belladonna is Briar’s mother and unknown. From all Nori has heard of her, however, she is also deserving of respect and that is something that it costs the dwarf nothing at all to give. Belladonna’s insistence that Briar travel might just improve her daughter’s chances of a happy ending in thirteen years.

“Would I offer it if I did not?” Belladonna raises an amused eyebrow and Nori sees more of the Briar of now in this hobbit than the Briar of the future. Again she finds herself wondering what happens to her tiny friend in the coming years to turn her from the bright and outgoing girl she is now to the nervously fussy creature she will become. Perhaps something to do with the Proudfoot lad Belladonna mentioned. 

Nori follows obediently when the hobbit gestures her into the kitchen and sits at the familiar table, watching as Belladonna pulls out a tankard that is almost comically large in her small hands. She disappears into the pantry for a moment, before reappearing with the tankard in hand and full to the brim of golden ale. The aged hobbit carefully places the tankard in front of her, then goes to the side board to cut a large slice from a cake that has been stored there under a glass cover. The hobbit cuts a large slice and places it in front of her, and Nori wastes no time in devouring it, having skipped lunch in order to reach Bag End rather than stopping to eat and wasting extra time and rations. The cake is heavy with dried fruit and Nori can detect the faintest hint of alcohol that has obviously been soaked into it. Belladonna gives her a satisfied smile as she places a kettle on the stove, watching with obvious approval as she waits for the kettle to boil.

“Nice to see you have an appetite,” the hobbit comments.

“All dwarves do,” Nori agrees as she takes a long drink from the tankard. The ale is light and slightly sweet. “Get a dozen of us together and we could probably clear your pantry in an evening.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Belladonna replies with a laugh, “but it would only take half a dozen determined hobbits.”

“I’m home, Ma!” Briar’s voice prevents any reply from Nori. “The market was packed today, Mrs Gamgee asked about you, said she’ll bring some of her tonic over as soon as the new batch is…” She comes into the kitchen and spots Nori at the table, ale in hand and empty plate in front of her. “Nori!” She exclaims happily. “You’re early!”

For some reason, Nori cannot help the laugh that bubbles out of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there won't be another chapter of this on Thursday, I have a maths assignment to get out for Wednesday night which I need to concentrate on. No writing time for me sadly. Jewel of Durin will continue to get updates because I'm miles ahead on that one, but this is more of a flying by the seat of my trousers deal. I always promise myself I won't do this, and then get excited and do it. Because I'm a giant hypocrite and needy for comments. Always love the comments. See you in a week!


	11. Feels Like I Should Be Getting Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briar’s aim is uncanny and Nori watches with delight as she hits target after target.

Nori meets the Proudfoot boy two days after her arrival. It is not quite warm enough for her to feel comfortable taking Briar up into the mountains just yet, she still remembers how cold and miserable the future Briar was during their late autumn walk into Erebor, and so she has instead decided that they will spend a few weeks in the Shire building up her stamina and practicing everything that Nori had previously taught the hobbit. To that she adds the set of throwing knives that she had made for Briar in Ered Luin. 

Briar’s aim is uncanny and Nori watches with delight as she hits target after target. The only problem is her release but with practice that will improve and Briar is committed to training every morning so it is only natural that the Proudfoot lad would hear of it and turn up while Nori and Briar are sparring. 

“Mistress Baggins!” He shouts in horror though Nori has no idea whether it is because Briar is wearing trousers, which her few days in the Shire has shown her is unusual, or if it is because the two of them are grappling.

She forgets, for a moment, that Belladonna and Briar are the only ones who know that she is a female dwarf. 

“Unhand her, sir, how dare you!” Proudfoot continues.

“Borden Proudfoot, what _are_ you going on about?” Briar demands as she twists out of Nori’s grip with relative ease, although that is mostly because Nori is not really trying. 

She scowls back at the dwarf, obviously aware of the fact that Nori failed to stop her, then turns her attention back to the hobbit lad. If this is the best of the crop in the Shire Nori can see why Briar’s eye was caught by one of the heir’s to Durin’s throne. She would very much like to figure out which one it was, if not both, but Briar played her cards close to her chest on this one and been so nervous around then all in general that even Nori’s sharp eyes had missed it until she had head Briar’s heartbroken wail upon being informed of the boys deaths. It had been enough to cut through Nori’s own grief and put a few stray pieces together. 

Still, regardless of whether Briar comes on the quest in the future or not, Nori is absolutely certain there is nothing that this hobbit could do to convince her to marry him.

“Allowing that dwarf to handle you so, Briar-Rose,” Borden is saying when Nori’s thoughts turn back to the issue at hand. “What would the neighbours think? What would my _parents_ think? How can we begin to pursue a courtship with such behaviour?”

“We won’t _begin_ a courtship, Master Proudfoot,” Briar snaps, “because I cannot conceive of any circumstance which might induce me to accept such an offer. I think I would rather court an _orc_ than _you_.” Even Nori winces at that one.

“And this dwarf?” Proudfoot stiffens. “Do you think he’ll be honest with you? Your cruel words may be for his benefit, but he will simply take advantage of your innocence and leave you ruined.”

“Hardly likely,” Nori sniffs before Briar can reply. “The lass isn’t my type, lad. I prefer them larger, built like a mountain, bearded, and bristling with weapons. Especially axes. Not to mention hung like a horse.”

Briar grins. “I can safely say that I’m none of those things,” she arches an eyebrow at Borden. “Who I choose to spend my time with, Borden Proudfoot, is not now, and nor will it ever be, any of your concern. You will not have me, you will not have Bag End and you will not have my money. Leave.”

Nori is not sure what the lad intends on doing, but she decides that now is the time to step in before he does something to prompt Briar to use the knife at her hip. 

“Take it from me, lad,” she says softly as she leans in close. “She’s not for you, she’s for greater things, and if you lay so much as a finger on her, you will draw dozens of dwarves down upon your head.”

“You don’t frighten me,” he replies, though Nori can clearly see fear in his dark eyes. She grins at him, the expression somewhat dragon like.

“Then you’re more stupid than I thought,” she purrs. “Leave.”

She stares down the path as the lad scampers away, her expression speaking entire volumes about how unimpressed she is with the calibre of males in this place.

“Thank you,” Briar says, drawing Nori’s attention back to her. The dwarf turns in surprise, startled that she is being _thanked_ rather than shouted at for interfering where she should keep her nose out of where it does not belong. “Borden has a less than entirely savory reputation. I don’t want to think about what he might have tried if you hadn’t stepped in.”

“What sort of reputation?” Nori demands.

“The sort that makes me not want to be alone with him,” Briar replies, “but at the moment there’s no proof, only his word against that of another lass, and it hasn’t spread as widely as it should.”

“Does your mother know?” 

“Does it seem like the sort of thing I would want to concern her with at the moment?” Briar shakes her head. “But it is one of the reasons that I’ve kept on top of my training.” 

“I think she should know,” Nori sighs, “in her place I would want to know. Regardless of your intentions, however, I think she suspects and in light of this afternoon’s events I think it’s time to get you out of the Shire.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Briar smiles. “And while we’re on the road maybe you can tell me the real reason you were so early.” She presses.

“Not a chance,” Nori laughs, but it is a slightly forced sound. Briar gives her a sharp look and Nori remembers how observant the Briar of the future was. _That_ was apparently _not_ a more recent development. It makes the dwarf wonder how the hobbit managed to miss Gandalf defacing her door. “We should go to the market and pick up supplies,” she continues, changing the subject in an effort to distract the hobbit from questions she is not quite ready to attempt answering, “there aren’t many villages on the way to Thorin’s Halls.”

“There won’t be much in the market,” Briar shakes her head as she sets her knife belt into a chest near the door. Belladonna has rules about weapons in the house and Nori follows her friend’s example. “Hobbit’s don’t make a habit of travelling all that much and when we do it’s only around the Shire. There aren’t all that many places more than a day away from a market. I found a recipe for some sort of travel bread in a book in Rivendell, and we have some good preserved hams, as well as the pony.” Nori thinks for a moment.

“That should hold us over until we reach the next village,” she agrees. “Do you think your Ma will be upset if we leave a little early?”

“I think she’ll be relieved,” Briar admits. “Mrs Proudfoot is trying to convince her to talk me into allowing Bordon to court me, getting out of the Shire will take that pressure off her, and maybe convince everyone that I’m not going to be the one to take any of Borden Proudfoot’s nonsense.”

This information is rather more illuminating for Nori than the dwarf knows the hobbit will ever realise. She has long wondered why the Briar of the future would keep quiet about her feelings for one or both of Thorin’s sister-sons. There would have been nothing shameful about it and while it might have ultimately proven awkward were it Fíli who held her interest, Kíli would have proved a good match for her. As far as Nori understands from her conversations with Belladonna, the current Thain is Briar’s uncle and about the closest thing that there is to a king in the Shire. The awkwardness with Fíli would have come from elsewhere, and the sister-daughter of a ruler in their place of power is still of a higher status than the sister-son of a king without his throne. Which is not the only conclusion that Nori has drawn since being in the Shire and while she had initially thought that the older Briar’s absolute wariness of the seemingly all male Company had been routed in only that one encounter with the Men in Bree that Nori had prevented from happening, she now wonders if Borden Proudfoot also had something to do with it.

“Has anything actually been _done_ about this Borden Proudfoot?” Nori asks as they make their way to one of the storerooms so that Briar can gather her travelling gear together. Dimly Nori can hear the quiet murmur of Belladonna’s voice and that of another hobbit, but Briar stiffens and Nori wonders what her friend hears that she cannot. 

“Those of us who believe the stories, and the conclusions we’ve drawn for ourselves from our own instincts and his behaviour, avoid being alone with him at all costs,” Briar replies. “We keep an eye on the ones who either haven’t listened or lack the sense to see what their eyes are telling them.” She shakes her head. “Those with the power to _do_ something generally just shake their heads and tell us we’re seeing things.”

Nori pulls a face. Such people are not unheard of among dwarves either, much as she wishes that was not the case, but they also tend to take such things more seriously than the hobbits seem to be doing. Still there is little that she can do in this place, except to bring Briar to Ered Luin as the hobbit has requested. In an odd way, Nori is looking forward to taking Briar to her home and seeing how she behaves when surrounded by dwarves. The Briar of the future was cautious, Nori would even go so far as to even say almost terrified on occasion, this Briar is so open and though her tongue is no less sharp on occasion she is still a fascinating person to hold a conversation with. In the future Nori knows that Balin will be the one in the Company to really discover this first, if things play out the same way it will be good for Briar to be known to some of them.

Nori still regrets that she did not press to investigate Briar further on the day that she heard the wizard declare she was to be their burglar. Now she at least knows how woefully unprepared future Briar proved to be. The Briar of now will do better and making sure that she meets Dori and Ori, at least, will give her the comfort of friends in the Company in thirteen years. Should the quest happen at all.

Nori cannot help but wonder if something might yet happen to prevent it, even as the two of them begin to gather everything they can from the pantry. Briar disappears to the study that had once been her fathers to write to the farmer who has been caring for her pony to ask that the beast be brought to Bag End the following day. Nori finds herself unexpectedly eager to be on the road again, something which is halted by Belladonna telling them both later that evening that Briar’s uncle has several letters he wants them to take with them to be delivered to Balin, of all dwarves, detailing some changes to the agreements between their people that the Thain would like to discuss with them.

It comes as a surprise to find that, when the letters arrive, the Thain has also sent a large amount of information to Briar so that she can handle it all in his stead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, assignment done (aced it incidentally, which makes me unbelievably happy), squeezed some writing in and it's the season of mummy-fu! Christmas is around the corner and I am going to be a busy, busy, mama. Not that this will stop me from trying to get chapters ready to go. I have five weeks of Jewel of Durin ready to go, but I may have to drop to once a week for a couple of weeks without warning. So if I vanish, I'm off preparing Christmas for my Grumpy Dwarf King and Shieldmaiden.


	12. Nothing And No One Will Stop Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Along the way they also discuss more about the various poisonous plants that Briar has spotted on the roadside.

They leave the Shire with Belladonna’s words of affection for her daughter loud in Nori’s ears. Not that she really needed the request that she keep an eye on Briar to do exactly that and it is less out of care for the future, regardless of whether the quest for Erebor happens there is every chance that the wizard will come to the Shire and find a hobbit who will prove less entertaining and in need of an adventure than he hoped, in which case he will very likely move on to find a different one. Especially if Briar’s confidence continues to increase in the way it seems to have been since Nori met her. Nori will watch over Briar because she is genuinely fond of the hobbit girl and nearly a month of travel along wet, muddy, roads in spring only serves to strengthen that familiar friendship which their trip to and from Rivendell had begun. This Briar is a far better travelling companion than the one of the future had been, open and eager to learn. The mud gives them an additional challenge when they start training in the evenings, and Nori sees how nimble hobbits really are. 

They spend almost as much time laughing as they do practicing, but it gives Briar an edge over Nori who has to put more effort into every fight in order to win. The hobbit learns with eviable swiftness and coupled with her hidden strength it will make her a formidable opponent in the coming years. Mostly because people will always underestimate her. Not that she will ever be truly able to last in armed close combat with orcs. All the training in the world will never be able to compensate for the fact that Briar stands at only a couple of inches over three feet tall. Dwarves are highly trained warriors, even the least of them is capable of holding their own against a number of orcs for a short time. There is a reason that so many orcs will be brought to Erebor to face so few dwarves.

Nori spends her time doing other things as well, teaching Briar how to hide her purse and her coin on her person so that it will not get lifted as soon as they enter the town. The thieves of the Halls recognise Nori, she is known enough to them that they will rarely bother to try and pick her pocket unless they are hazing a new recruit. Which leads Nori to begin teaching Briar to lift small things from stalls and pockets as they pass through the few villages on the way to the mountains. Briar is, predictably, uncertain about this latest lesson but she takes it in good humour. She is not, to Nori’s dismay, quite the same natural that she is at the combat techniques that Nori has been teaching her, but her touch is light enough to make up for it. 

Along the way they also discuss more about the various poisonous plants that Briar has spotted on the roadside. Her bottle of berries from the trip to Rivendell had been distilled during her stay in the Hidden Valley and there is some discussion between them about the merits of a poisoned blade to use while she is travelling. As a rule Nori is not a fan of poisons, but then she has never had as much of a calling towards subtly dealing in death as she had seen in Kíli. Kíli was, is, will be, a skilled swordsman and archer, and Nori has rarely met another dwarf more skilled at putting others at ease while hiding the depth of their skill and intelligence. Even most of the Company, aside from those who had spent time with the two boys as they grew up, had been fooled by the act. Being able to set people at ease is key when trying to discover things about them that they may not want others to know. 

This Briar, young and unjaded by life, shows some of the same traits and Nori suspects that with the right boost of confidence she will be equally as formidable when paired with the younger heir. Provided Kíli is where Briar’s interest lies this time around. Who knows who might catch Briar’s eye now that she has less cause to be wary.

While there are few villages on the route they are travelling, it is a well used road and between the villages are several way-houses that have been built specifically for the traders who travel between Ered Luin and everything to the east. Her people trade with a large number of settlements east of Ered Luin, her home may not be as prosperous as Erebor once was but they do well enough for themselves and there are stones found in those mountains that cannot be found elsewhere. These wayhouses are not occupied for the most part, providing only a safe, warm and comfortable place to sleep with bunks for up to ten travellers at a time. There is a lean-to on one side to provide shelter for any ponies and the only requirement on those who use the places is that they clean up after themselves, keep any fights outside, and replenish the firewood if they are able.

Nori has been known to occasionally not bother stocking the firewood up. With Briar along she feels almost like she has to. Certainly Briar would direct a raised eyebrow, along with a cutting remark, her way and while Nori hardly cares about such things from most people in her life, Briar is different in that respect. She has been a good friend to Nori, even during this short time, and she is one of the few people outside of the dwarf’s craft who has not sneered or withdrawn upon discovering it. Thieves, spies and assassins are not highly thought of in any society, even among dwarves who believe that they are called to a thing as much as they may have a choice. Briar treats her no differently, did not even ask to search Nori or her belongings upon their departure from Bag End, and so Nori will make her own allowances for her hobbit friend which she might not have made once upon a time. 

Once they have spent time outside the small huts training in the evening, and the huts themselves make it a little easier to stay in one place for a few days if the rain gets too heavy, Briar will apply herself to reading through the information that her uncle sent with her. It surprises Nori to find that some of the items in question are actually produced via lands that belong to Briar, although she is newly into her inheritance and has left much of it up to a steward as she learns the intricacies of it for herself, though Ered Luin is prosperous in other ways, the land is poor for growing many necessities and some luxuries. The matter at hand, however, is the behaviour of a trader or two, who it would seem have been cheating the hobbits out of gold that is rightfully theirs. Nori remembers the year that certain goods, namely a certain batch of pipeweed that the dwarves use to make their preferred blend, a large measure of the ingredients needed for ale and a few others, did not arrive with the usual caravans. Likely, it would seem, because the hobbits had ceased trade with the individuals in question.

“It’s a courtesy,” Briar explains. “Not that I blame my uncle for recommending we stop the trade, this cuts into my pocket too. We’re giving your people the chance to find someone more honest to take the contract before we put an end to it.” 

Which Nori will admit is more than her people would do in the same situation.

They take their time getting to Thorin’s Halls, in part because they avoid some especially wet days but also because Nori is dragging her heels about going back. Even though she has been away for almost three months, part of her is worried about how her heart will react if she sees Dwalin again. She still longs for him, a year after finding herself in her own past she misses him in much the same way that she thinks she would miss a limb and she does not want to. She wants to be able to walk back into this life from before her days working for her king and live it the way that she wants to. Dwalin should be a mistake that she can leave in a future that may never now happen. Instead she wants to make the exact same mistake again. At least having Briar along will hopefully prevent it from happening. 

But then, Briar is a romantic and Nori knows that is something that will not change in the future even if something happens to make her wary of it for herself. It is entirely possible that Briar will see an unguarded moment when Nori looks at Dwalin and make it her mission to get the two of them together. The fact that a part of the spy wants to figure out which of Fíli and Kíli it was that the future Briar had fallen for and ensure that relationship starts the right way is neither here nor there. 

Before entering the town Nori makes sure that all of Briar’s valuables are hidden in such a way as to discourage the local thieves from targeting her. Only a small part of the town is outside the mountain, the area dedicated to those crafts that have a more offensive smell and the stables where the ponies used by others in the town are kept. As it is outside of the shelter of the mountain the streets here are also mucky, slick with mud and wet from recent rain. Her people march here and there, their movements purposeful since they do not tend to loiter in this part of town unless they have reason to. It is also where the outsiders tend to come and stay; mostly Men who bring caravans of goods from various towns and villages in the realms of Middle Earth. For that reason it is one of the busier parts of town, with merchants of both races moving around, vendors of goods with their shops and stalls that fill the wide streets with yet more goods that might appeal to any who pass by. It is cramped, and a prime place for thieves to work their trade so Nori is on high alert as they pass through. 

The touch is light when it comes, almost light enough that even she would miss it were she not waiting for it. Briar is watching everything around them with large, fascinated blue eyes as Nori quietly points out the building that belongs to the Merchants Guild where they will find Balin once they have had a chance to rest and clean up. The touch is not entirely clumsy, but it is enough that Nori notices it and her hand shoots out to grasp the wrist of the one trying to pick her pocket. The dwarf yelps, his voice younger sounding than she had expected, as she digs her fingers into a sensitive spot, twisting the arm she grasps as her captive tries to twist out of her grip. 

He is quick, and more nimble than Nori had expected, but she is still quicker and she sweeps his legs out from under him with hers. The dwarf hears another yell as she moves to grab the lad before he can run, wanting to know who is sponsoring him so that she can berate them for his clumsy attempt since there is no chance he would have managed to get anything off her. There is a wet thunk, however, the moment after and she risks a glance to see that Briar has used her small stature and apparent helplessness to trip the second dwarf as he rushed forwards. Nori’s heart sinks when she realises that the dwarf Briar has managed to bring down, purely through the element of surprise it would seem as well as with the help of the muck in the road, is Fíli. Briar has learnt well, however, and Nori has been diligent in teaching her the weak spots to jab her fingers in order to better incapacitate a larger opponent. For the moment Fíli is down and Nori turns her attention back to the dark haired dwarf that she holds. She does not need to pull him up and turn him in order to see his face, as soon as she had seen his brother she had worked out this dwarf’s identity, looking at Kíli as he stares at her with an expression which shows how aware he is that he is probably in deep shit. For a moment she sees a flicker of hope on his face, then he looks behind her and must see Briar holding his brother because the hope vanishes as quickly as it came. She still sees the moment that Kíli first lays eyes upon Briar, his dark eyes go wide and he flushes scarlet at the sight of the tiny hobbit pinning his brother with her knees in a couple of strategic places.

“What are you doing in this part of town, little prince?” Nori purrs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm still here, still managing chapters. Got the Mother-In-Law down on Saturday to deliver presents for the children, which will cut drastically into my writing time, so if you don't see me on Monday I haven't forgotten! MIL has simply swamped the minis with enough gifts that my time has been spent breaking up fights and putting things together.


	13. Bright Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kíli’s face lights up.

Both of the lads freeze for a moment as soon as they realise that Nori is aware of who they are. It is only a brief thing, but noticeable enough to both dwarf and hobbit. Nori is aware of Briar’s grip on Fíli eases as she realises that he must also be a prince. Briar is well read, so she knows what being a prince means, but the blond dwarf does not throw her off violently, there is a cautiousness in his movement which gives Briar a chance to move away. Neither of the lads move, Fíli gets to his feet and Kíli turns a rather charming smile upon Nori and Briar which the thief is amused to note makes the hobbit blush.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the younger of the pair grins, “everyone knows that the princes are only permitted in this part of town under escort.”

It would be convincing, Nori thinks, if she was not familiar with a future version of this very dwarf. Still, she hums and adjusts her grip slightly, the stance a little more menacing. 

“Silly pup,” she breathes, “you tried to pick the wrong pocket. Lucky for you I don’t tend to stab first, unfortunately for you I won’t be taking you to the guard either.”

Kíli’s face lights up.

“So you’ll just let us go?” He asks brightly.

“Do I strike you as the kind of person to let something like this slide?” Nori replies seriously. “Who’s your guild sponsor?”

“My…?” His eyes slide to Fíli.

“It was just a dare,” Fíli cuts in, “that’s all. I bet him he couldn’t pick your pocket and slip it back without being noticed.” Nori arches an eyebrow at them both. 

She remembers something like this happening in a few years and rather than meeting Nori, who does not leap for her blade first simply because she is so often used to help train the new pick pockets, the boys had met someone slightly quicker to reach for their blade upon noticing a hand near their purse that did not belong there. She remembers the incident vividly as both the one which had brought Kíli’s calling fully to her attention, the argument that had caused with Thorin and Dís, and the fact that she and Dwalin had ended up working on babysitting duty with the two princes for the next eighteen months or so. Kíli had, in fact, been lucky to survive it and she had wondered, eight years later, why Dís had not argued harder against either of her lads going on the quest to Erebor. 

“I don’t have a sponsor,” Kíli admits. “I’m not… this was just a game.”

“Nori,” Briar interrupts the conversation to glance over her shoulder. They are drawing attention and the thief shakes her head. This is not the place for such a conversation and she grabs Kíli’s ear.

“Come with me you lot,” she tells the two lads and the hobbit lass. “I need to take a moment to inform these two of the dangers of the game they’ve been playing.”

Nori is a member of the thieves guild. In the long run it does not offer a huge amount of protection to its members, if a member gets caught by the guard they are on their own. What it does offer is protection for their families and a way to find others to work jobs with when an extra pair of hands or three are needed. No guild member will swindle another. No guild member will rob another or their family. No guild member will rat out another. Although the guild is known primarily as that of thieves, it also contains the assassins and spies of the town as well. Nori is fortunate to be able to fill all three roles, most remain thieves until the end of their days. 

Those who are _not_ members of the guild suffer harshly at the hands of the guild enforcers long before they ever reach the town guard.

“Right,” Nori hisses once they have found an alley to duck down. “You two have just dared yourselves into a right mess, haven’t you?” She takes a quick look at Briar who is watching nervously, and then looks back at the baffled princes. “You tried to steal from a member of the guild, boys,” she hisses. “That doesn’t end well for you.”

“But it was just a joke,” Kíli insists.

“If it had been any other guild member we wouldn’t be having this chat right now,” Nori snaps, “you’d be on the ground with their blade between your ribs. If you were lucky.” The words bring back the memory of their cold bodies at Thorin’s side after the battle. Fíli’s eyes had been wide and unseeing, Kíli’s closed, the stillness of both of them unnatural and she has to stamp down on the grief that plows into her at the memory, abruptly wanting nothing more than to drag both boys into her arms and swear not to let it happen that way again. She sucks in a breath. “Everyone in this part of town knows that if you aren’t guild your days are numbered,” she explains. “This is a really stupid game and a very dangerous hobby to take up.”

“It’s not a hobby!” Kíli exclaims. “It’s…”

“Kíli, don’t.” Fíli cuts his brother off.

“She might be able to help,” Kíli objects, “what can it hurt?” He turns pleading eyes on his brother and Nori sees Fíli deflate. Some things never change. “I think it’s my craft. Or craft adjacent, but my mother and uncle won’t let me find someone to teach me.”

‘Got him,’ Nori thinks triumphantly.

“That makes it easier,” Nori nods, taking another glance at Briar to see that she is watching everything in utter fascination. Fíli’s attention is torn between Briar and his brother, and she notes to congratulate the hobbit on using her advantage over the elder prince so effectively. “If you think you’re better suited to the more underhand trades I can teach you. Which will save  _ both _ of us from getting flayed by the enforcers when word of this reaches the Guild Master.”

“Our uncle won’t like it,” Fíli points out and Nori sees Kíli deflate a little.

“Do you think I care?” Nori asks him. “For that matter do you think the Thieves Guild will care? I know insanity runs in the Durin line, lad, but last I checked none of you are particularly stupid. Aside from the obvious mess that the pair of you have dragged me into anyway.”

Fíli tilts his chin, youthful pride obviously not appreciating Nori’s scolding tone. She thinks quickly and realises that he will not be of age for another ten months or so. Being of age means little in the grand scheme of things. Most dwarves will be working, or at least coming towards the end of their apprenticeship, will have seen a skirmish or two, and have enjoyed the pleasurable company of at least one partner. For the most part the only thing they cannot do before they are of age is leave their parents’ home, travel with the caravans, or agree to enter a courtship. The only other problem is getting permission from their parents if they wish to enter an apprenticeship, since usually the parents pay for it.

Not so with the thieves guild. The thieves are masters of taking those things which do not belong to them and profiting from them. The belongings, secrets and even lives of others can be used to generate coin, regardless of what can be taken from people’s pockets and purses. Most parents will not pay for the training in such a trade, it is hardly the most noble of them, and so those who show a proclivity towards it are trained and they pay off their apprenticeship over the coming years.

“He could still stop it,” Kíli tells her. 

“No, lad,” Nori shakes her head. “He can try, but this is a busy part of town for the Guild. It’s unlikely that no one saw us. Which means that we have two, maybe three days to register you as my apprentice, after that they’ll be looking for you and they know exactly where to find  _ me _ . Unless your uncle has a member of the guild in his employ,” which she knows that he does not, “he won’t be able to stop them from finding you and taking you or killing you.”

Actually, Nori doubts that anyone dangerous saw them. She knows that Kíli originally got away with this for another three or four years before he was caught so it is entirely likely that no one in the Guild got a good enough look at him this time, but she does not want to take any chances and if she needs to use this incident to make sure that she can actually  _ train _ Kíli this time she will do so. She failed him once and Nori refuses to do so again, she refuses to let the lad join his uncle’s fool quest without being able to utilise his abilities as a thief, spy or assassin. It will take time to figure out which part of the trade suits him the best, although his ability with the bow means that she has her suspicions. After all, there is more to assassination that simple poisons, garottes and daggers in dark corners. 

“There’s nothing else that can be done?” Fíli asks after an awkward moment. Nori arches an eyebrow at him. “And what about her? Isn’t she some sort of apprentice?” He points at Briar whose expression tightens momentarily. The Kíli looks at her and she flushes under his gaze instead. 

Internally, Nori does a gleeful dance.

“Thieving doesn’t pay much on the road,” Nori shrugs in reply to the blond’s question. “Nothing wrong with taking on a little legitimate work every now and then.” Briar ducks her head slightly. “Although, now I think about it, a little free piece of advice for you; pay more attention to your surroundings than you do your brother, no matter how wrong it sounds or feels. I might just save your life one day.”

Nori knows how the bodies of the two princes were found, and she has little doubt that it was not simply numbers that led to their fall. She had seen enough of their fighting style to know that it was more than likely that Fíli had focused too hard on Kíli and missed a threat to himself entirely. 

“Now,” Nori says, “run home little princes, run home and tell your mother all about the trouble you’re in. I’ll be coming to see her tomorrow, so don’t think you’ll be able to hide it, I know more routes in and out of your uncle’s home than he realises exist.”

“What name do we give our mother?” Kíli’s eyes are bright and hopeful, an expression that Nori only recalls seeing on his future self’s face a handful of times. It is a good thing to see there and the part of her that still cares about the lads warms at the sight of it. Once again, and it has happened a distressing number of times during this conversation, she has to remind herself that these are not the same lads that she has come to love. These are the young heirs before she knew them and it is unwise to let her attachment for the ones she came to know override her sense here.

“Nori,” she replies quickly. “Now shoo. Stop dithering around here and go straight home, just in case someone noticed that we would rather hadn’t.”

She huffs as she watches them scurry off. Neither of them will make it in her world if they carry on with this noble attitude of theirs, and she is under no illusions about Kíli will share what he learns with his brother. She would worry if he did not, so long as when the time comes for the skills to be properly used Fíli remembers that the job is Kíli’s and not his. Life for the young princes would have been easier if they were both called to something noble and accepted. Fíli  _ is _ a smith. There was never any question about his calling, even if both lads are skilled with a fiddle. It shows how sheltered they are, however, that neither of them ever questioned whether they should simply find a way to kill her and Briar and try to hide everything that had happened from everyone. It is what Nori would have done in their place and it just goes to show how truly suited she is to the seedy underworld of dwarven society. Nevertheless she will have to take a trip the Guild headquarters tonight, once she has taken Briar to Dori, to explain what has happened to the Master of the Guild, there is, after all, another option that she did  _ not _ make Kíli aware of and she wants to be certain that Mavik will not entertain the idea should Dís or Thorin attempt to pay the Guild off. After all, Nori is the injured party here, and she will get the final say. Unless they offer a truly vast amount of gold, then she will  _ have _ to accept to save face.

“Come on,” she says to Briar, draping an arm about her shoulders. “Let's get you settled at home. Then I need to go to my Guild and sort this mess out.” She sighs and lets her shoulders sag as though the whole mess is a massive inconvenience.

Inside, however, she is very close to dancing for joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally forgot that I have D&D tomorrow night (yay for nerdiness!!) and it's going to be a _long session_. So I'm getting this one up early and will see you all who aren't reading The Jewel of Durin after Christmas. Nadelek Lowen to you all


	14. My Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tell me,” Mavik commands

Briar’s initial meeting with Dori goes well. She is road dirtied and tired, not to mention splattered with mud from pinning Fíli to the ground, but her hobbit manners are still impeccable and appeal to the general fussiness of Nori’s older brother. Dori smiles as Briar greets him and thanks him quite prettily for his hospitality, then raises his eyebrows at Nori in apparent surprise as he ushers Briar to the small room that was once Ori’s bedroom. 

“I need to pop out for an hour or so,” Nori says before Dori can press her to go and clean up. “Briar was there and knows why, it’s time sensitive and the quicker I deal with it the quicker I can be back for the evening.”

“What did you do?” Dori sighs and Nori sees Briar grin over her shoulder at him, the reaction being exactly the one that the thief had told the hobbit to expect.

“I was provoked,” Nori sniffs, “and now Mavik needs to be made aware of it.”

"You don't seem too concerned," Dori comments.

"Because I'm not," Nori shrugs. "I have no need to be," which is a lie but Dori does not need to know that. "It won't take long, but it can't be put off."

"If you must," her brother huffs. 

"It'll cause more trouble if I don't," she replies. "That's the last thing any of us want, believe me. Promise I won't be more than an hour."

Dori scowls at her as she walks out the door, but lets the matter drop in favour of dealing with their guest, even if Briar is technically Nori’s guest. The thief has not made any arrangements for payment this time, even though Briar has paid for all the inns and supplies on the way. It simply had not occurred to her and felt more like travelling with a member of her family than it had with an employer. Still, it will not hurt to spread around that this is a paid connection. The Briar of the past would never have accepted an offer to join the family of any member of the Company, Nori knew her well enough to realise that it would be a foreign concept to the hobbit and certainly no one in the Company trusted her enough to make the offer, as much as they liked her. The spy blames Thorin for that, the rest of the Company took their cue from him, even though Briar’s twitchiness did not help.  _ This _ Briar, however, may well one day come to understand an offer of family, Nori can see herself one day making it and it should come as a surprise to the thief but it does not. Briar is easy to become fond of as she is now. 

For all that she appears lost in thought, Nori is still keenly alert to everything that is happening in the street around her so she notices the young dwarf who moves out of an alley just as she passes. He follows her, and were she not on the alert, as she always is when moving through this part of town, she might have missed him. His sponsor will not be pleased, but Nori rather suspects that whoever sent the lad expected her to notice she was being followed, in light of what happened earlier she is surprised that there are not more people following to ensure that she is coming to update Mavik. She would do it in his place.

Mavik has her brought to his private office instantly, which tells her that he is already aware of the altercation, although he cannot be certain of the outcome unless the two boys have returned home more rapidly than she expected them to. Certainly she would never have hurried home in their place, she did not when she realised that her childhood habit of taking things she should not have had been the early signs of her trade. Her hesitation had been warranted, Dori had been furious and her mother had wept for it. It is one of Nori’s final memories of her mother and it is a bitter thing to carry, knowing that she disappointed her only living parent so close to the day that her mother passed. For a time Dori had claimed that it was word of her trade which had broken her mother’s heart enough to be the final blow to her passing. It had caused a great deal of trouble between them for a long time and even now still rears up on occasion. Usually when Nori has done something more questionable than usual, which taking Kíli as her apprentice definitely qualifies as. Actually, the fact that she has been quietly training Briar, even if she never intends for the hobbit to become a member of the Thieves Guild, would probably cause a similar response from her older brother.

“Tell me,” Mavik commands as soon as he has passed her an elegantly cut crystal glass half filled with a clear amber liquid. 

Nori raises it to her nose and inhales deeply before taking a sip. Mavik is rather fond of his poisons, although she doubts he would bother to try and use them against her. She knows the smell of most of his preferred options, even if she is not fond of using them or overly familiar with the different types herself. Poisons are something that Kíli will benefit from learning about, but she will not bring him to Mavik for that. She has a different idea where that is concerned.

“Little prince tried to pick my pocket,” she smiles, “and then he was silly enough to play it off as a game.” Mavik scowls at her and she takes another drink before she tells him what happened in more detail.

“And you  _ waited _ to come and tell me about this?” Mavik demands. “What of the halfling girl? She knows far more than any stranger should!”

“They don’t like being called halflings,” Nori replies firmly, “and the girl is my current employer. She has no interest in the working of the Guild at all, her interest is only in getting into the Merchant’s Guild to discuss some urgent business with Balin, son of Fundin, and then returning to the Shire. As far as she was concerned it was simply an opportunity for her to practice certain wrestling techniques against larger and more experienced opponents. I had to fulfil that part of my contract before I came here.” Mavik grunts, obviously unconvinced, but he has learnt to trust her judgement in these things. “I don’t want you to accept the pay off,” she warns the Guild Master. “That lad has talent, which means that he’s been practicing for a long time. Taking a pay off won’t stop him from doing it again, his family has too much money for it to make all that much of a dent, and he struck me as sheltered enough that I doubt they would tell him much about it.” 

Nori is not above using what she knows about the two lads from having lived these years once in order to get her point across with Mavik, who is staring at her with annoyance that he cannot quite hide. He is a good assassin, and a decent thief, but Mavik has never been much of one for keeping his thoughts from his face. Not like Nori has always been able to and it is one of the reasons that people so often underestimate her.

“All that from one meeting?” He grumbles.

“One meeting,” Nori shrugs, “but I’ve kept an eye on the family off and on for years. You never know when something valuable might come up.”

“Making a bid for my job?” Mavik demands.

“Something like that. You’ll decline the pay off?” She presses. “I want that boy for my apprentice and I’m not going to have Thorin Oakenshield stick his nose in.”

“As you said, they have deep pockets,” Mavik muses, “and they paid us well to keep quiet the last three times…”

“ _ Three _ ?” Nori only just manages to keep herself from shouting. “The pay off is a one time only offer!”

“Thorin knows how much to offer to make it worth our while to take it,” Mavik replies. “He may not have the resources that his family did in Erebor, but the Durin’s have done well enough for themselves anyway, much as they scoff at it in comparison to Thrór’s hoard. They won’t be happy if we refuse them this time, frankly I can see Thorin and his sister making life difficult for us if we push this.”

“And I can see the lad picking the wrong pocket one day and getting killed over it,” Nori points out, “which will make life even  _ more _ difficult for us.” It will, it took all of Nori’s quick tongue to talk Thorin out of purging the Guild entirely when Kíli had been stabbed during her last life. “You aren’t doing them any favours by letting them keep him from his trade. They’ve paid us off three times, obviously it isn’t working. It’s time we do the job properly.”

“Our king doesn’t want a thief for an heir, even if it’s only the spare one,” Mavik points out and Nori hides a wince. She knows how much that attitude towards Kíli hurts the younger prince.

“So I don’t train him as a thief,” Nori shrugs. “I’m not stupid Mavik, I can work out how best to train him to make it all work out for us. Of  _ all  _ of us, I’m the best one for the job.”

“I want to tell you to stick it,” Mavik huffs, “but the gang leaders agree with  _ you _ . The boy has had enough chances and much as I want to take more of Thorin’s money the leaders are calling for more permanent action to be taken if you won’t train him. At this point he’s making a mockery of our rules and we can’t allow it to continue. I presume you have some sort of plan for it? Last thing I want is to be pissing off Oakenshield without some sort of idea of what you’re going to do.”

“I plan to pay a visit to the boy’s mother,” Nori grins, “I’ve watched her enough to know how to make it all work, not to worry. We both know I’m best when I think of my feet.”

“And how do you plan on getting into that manor?” Mavik shakes his head. “You think they’ll just let you in if you waltz up to the door?”

“I have my ways, and I’m not sharing,” Nori winks at him. “Lets just say that I’ve been fostering a relationship with one of the guards.” It’s a lie, and a blatant one, but Mavik knows her too well to question it. He can well believe she has done such a thing because she has done it before more than once when she was younger.

“You know you’re on your own until you get the lad signed on,” Mavik points out. “We won’t come and pull you out.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Nori shakes her head. “What happens if they refuse to let me train him and come to pay again.”

“They’ve had their chances,” Mavik says seriously. “If I want to keep my position the lad trains or dies.” Which means that her neck will be on the line too, they won’t take out Mavik without taking out the dwarf who failed him so spectacularly. The only way a Master of the Thieves Guild loses his position is by dying. Very few of them live long enough to retire, Mavik certainly will not regardless of what happens with Kíli.

“Here’s hoping I can be persuasive enough,” Nori drains her drink and takes her leave. 

Originally she had planned to head straight home, now she knows that she does not have the time for that. She needs to approach Dís now, if Thorin’s habits have not changed from her memory of them he will be too busy to hear of this until an hour or so after dark-call. There is no night or day inside the mountain and that is where Thorin’s home lies. In the mountain nightfall is announced using bells so that those who wish to can keep their days meshed with the races of the overworld. 

She makes her way to the area which houses the home that Thorin shares with his sister, her sons and their guards easily enough. It is a well guarded area, but these are the guards who Nori had to train back when she first began to work for Thorin in her former timeline. They are fantastic in a fight, but not the most observant and she slips by them easily. Little wonder Fíli and Kíli managed to get past them and into areas that they should not have been. It is only as she is making her way through a little used side door that she remembers that Dwalin is very likely to be near Dís. He is Thorin’s shield, technically, but Thorin has always sent Dwalin to keep an eye on his sister and her sons, preferring to ensure their safety rather than worry over his own.

Nori would not be in the position she is now if her idiot king had focussed more on the safety of his heirs and less on the fact that so few dwarves had volunteered to join the quest for Erebor.  _ That _ Thorin had believed that if the people saw his confidence in his success since he was taking  _ both _ of his heirs more would join them. It still hurts to think about how wrong he was.

Dís’ chambers are empty when Nori slips in the window, sheathing the fine blade she had used to lift the latch inside. She closes the window behind her carefully and settles into the chair that sits near the desk Dís has in her chamber to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (if you celebrate). I am utterly exhausted from mine but there is, as always, too much to do for me to stop for any length of time. New year approaches so it's back to studying like crazy, writing all the fic and playing more D&D than I really have time for. As well as the usual mummy stuff. My evenings are full when you add in the weekly date night (although this generally boils down to watching something curled up on the sofa with the Manbeast). I like to be busy. Good thing really.


	15. Don't Tell Me Truth Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ve already paid them off three times,” Nori holds up a coin that had been sitting on the desk.

The door to Dís’ chamber slams open about twenty minutes after Nori has settled herself. The princess of Durin’s line is ranting loudly about the idiocy of her sons. Her frustration with Kíli is clear and it is obvious to Nori that Dís is reaching her breaking point.

“Princess,” Nori greets her.

“You must be Nori,” Dís says after a beat. 

“The lad told you,” she nods. “He tell you how deep in it he is?”

“He told me you believe I will give my permission for him to be trained,” Dís says coldly. Nori’s sharp eyes note movement behind the princess and she is dismayed when she realises that it  _ is _ Dwalin. It is somewhat satisfying, however, to see the twitch of his eye when he recognises her. “We have the money to pay off the guild.”

“You’ve already paid them off three times,” Nori holds up a coin that had been sitting on the desk. “Most people only get one chance to do that. They won’t take your money this time.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” Dís sneers.

“Oh, I don’t expect you to,” she chuckles. “Actually I would be disappointed if you didn’t try it. But you can’t fight the entire Guild.”

“I can think of a lot of people who would thank us for wiping out your kind here,” Dís shrugs. “No one will miss the thieves.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” Nori laughs, “of course, the assassins will have taken care of your lads before you’ve managed to wipe us out, but go ahead. Obviously the deaths of hundreds of dwarves is preferable to allowing Kíli to learn his trade.”

“Dís,” surprisingly Dwalin cuts the princess off before she can bite back. “We won’t slaughter our own people to make up for the boy’s inability to control his own impulses. He’s a thief, she’s offering to teach him. Better he’s trained than dead for the sake of Durin pride.”

The thief gives Dwalin a grateful look, feeling some of the cracks in her heart at the loss of their future beginning to heal a little. Perhaps she does not have to completely write off what she once had with him, perhaps she could take the risk of letting him into her heart again. She stamps the thought back down and keeps her attention on the task at hand. She cannot afford to get distracted by Dwalin this time.

“Let him become like  _ her _ ?” Dís snarls. “It would do untold damage to the reputation of our line. We’ve fought against this for eighteen years. How can we let that go to waste? How can we hold our heads high knowing we have a thief in our family?”

“I won’t just teach him to be a thief,” Nori replies rather than let Dís see that her words have dug into that old, deep wound caused by her own mother and brother. “At least, it won’t be my main focus for him although he’ll need to pass the trial to be registered with the guild, and I recommend that he gets registered when we’re done,” Nori puts the coin aside. “Most of us are thieves, but there are assassins and spies among us as well. I tend towards the first two, I won’t lie, but I think your son might be more the latter two, and don’t you think it would benefit his older brother to have a trained spy and assassin at his side on the day he takes the throne from  _ your _ brother?”

Dís blinks and Nori can see that this is something that obviously has not occurred to her. In her previous life, the thief had made this same argument only for it to fall upon deaf ears. This time, however, and with the immediacy of the outcome of Kíli’s actions forcing an urgency to the discussion, she can see that the princess is obviously considering the implications of it all now. 

“You can be discrete?” Dís demands.

“My trade relies on it,” Nori smirks. “I have to ask, though, it never occurred to you to tell the boy that you were paying off the guild? You had to know that they would eventually tell you it wasn’t going to happen anymore. Unlike the other guilds, our Guild Master answers to the whims of the gang leaders, and  _ they _ are the ones who have declared that your son has had too many chances. Frankly, I’m surprised they allowed more than one.”

Dís glances at Dwalin who gives her the carefully neutral look that Nori knows all too well. It is the look that says  _ I told you so _ , without drawing too much attention his way. The Princess pulls a face.

“I told him,” Dwalin says, “four years ago after the last time he was caught. He stops for a while, keeps to the rules his Ma gives him. Then he gets bored, or frustrated, and starts playing his games with the people who live here and work for his family.”

“Dwalin!” Dís hisses. 

“The lass needs to know,” Dwalin argues, “she’s right, we can’t take on the whole Thieves Guild even if the guard would agree to it. And I told you that they won’t. You and Thorin have tried burying your heads about this, we’ve warned the boy, obviously it isn’t working. It’s time you and Thorin faced facts; Kíli is a thief and that means he needs to enter a proper apprenticeship before he gets himself killed.”

Dís’ face pales. “I never thought  _ you _ would be the one to…”

“Better a thief than dead,” Dwalin tells her and Dís nods, although the betrayed expression is still clear on her face.

“Fine,” she breathes after a moment. Nori would feel elated but the victory seems hollow somehow and she suspects that if she does not move quickly Dís will still try to find a way out of this for Kíli. “Train him.”

“Tell the lad to meet me in the alley where we parted ways three hours after day-call,” she gets to her feet and stretches. “Sooner he’s down as my apprentice, the sooner he’s safe from retribution.” She turns, then pauses. “This isn’t something that just goes down on paper and that’s the end of it all,” she adds seriously. “He trains, he has to. He has about eighteen months until they will force him to take the thief’s trial, four years until the spy and maybe five until the assassin’s trial. There are no second chances, if he fails he  _ will _ be killed.”

“And if I don’t let you train him, you say he will be killed,” Dís responds. “What benefit is there to all of this, then?”

“Because if I train him he stands a chance,” Nori replies, “your son is good,  _ very _ good for someone who has never had any proper lessons, but  _ I’m _ better, as are a lot of the thieves in the guild. If I teach him, he will pass. If he fails I know a safe place for him to go. Provided he doesn’t drive me too deeply into the mines, anyway,” she has to force herself to remember that these are not the people she knows. 

This is not the Dwalin who loves her, or who she believed loved her, this is not the Dís who will confide in her over an ale or two and who sent her to keep an eye on Thorin and the lads. This is not the Fíli and Kíli who she had watched and taught small tricks to but who she had, ultimately, had to leave less trained than she wanted to. She wants to swear to Dís that for as long as Kíli is her apprentice she will protect him, but she also knows that she is no longer the kind of person that they would trust. It took her a long time to earn their trust in her old life. She will have to do that all over again now and she will have to be careful about how she does it.

Rather than saying anything else, she lets herself back out of the window and slips into the nearly abandoned streets below. 

She is as unchallenged on her way home as she was on the way there and she is less cautious about it. The dust of the road is heavy on her, the impression she has made upon both of the princes and their mother must be a very poor one, and she wants little more than to wash when she gets home. She has been gone longer than she should have been, but there is little to be done for it and no doubt Briar will understand, if she has even noticed. Dori can be a truly charming host when he puts his mind to it.

“Nori!” A familiar voice calls and her heart drops into her boots before she sets her face into a blank polite expression. Then she turns.

“Guard,” she replies with a minute twitch of her lips as Dwalin marches towards her. “Did your mistress forget something?” His face falls slightly, and if Nori had needed any reminders at all that this is not her Dwalin this would be it. Her words had been automatic, an old joke between them about his position guarding Dís.

“She doesn’t know I’ve come,” he responds stiffly. “It’s about the lad.”

“I’m listening,” she says after a beat. “But keep in mind that I can’t change the fact that he  _ has _ to start his apprenticeship.”

“I’m not asking that,” Dwalin shakes his head. “I won’t do him the disfavour of it, he needs to learn some responsibility and he’s long past the age where he should have done that.” Nori can agree with that. “I want you to promise you’ll watch over him. Dís has lost enough as it is, losing a son would break her.”

Nori winces, after all if she gets things wrong in thirteen years Dís will lose  _ two _ sons.

“And why would you take my word?” Nori gives him a dangerous smile. “I  _ am _ a thief. No honour and all that.”

“Orc shit,” Dwalin hisses. “Why didn’t you pull your knife? The other times the boy has been caught he was spotted by other thieves, and they were quick enough to march him to your guild. Why did you give him a chance?”

“Because I was working a legitimate job and apparently I’m a soft-hearted fool,” Nori lies.

“You confronted him in front of your employer by all accounts,” Dwalin shrugs, “strikes me they already know what your true trade is.”

“She does, doesn’t mean I’m going to go gutting tweens in front of her,” Nori waves her hand. “Hobbits are a squeamish bunch as a race, it’s something of a miracle that one left her homeland at all.”

“Why did she?” He asks, leaning against a nearby wall.

“Your brother is the head of the Merchant’s Guild,” Nori shrugs, pulling a sealed note from her pocket, she had meant to deliver it on her way back from meeting Mavik the conversation in his office had forced her to rethink some of her plans, “give him this and then ask him yourself.”

“I’m no one’s messenger, lassie,” Dwalin warns her, but takes the note anyway. “How did you know who my brother is?” He adds after a moment. 

“You think I didn’t look into you after you so nobley turned me down?” She smirks at him.

“I thought you’d left town,” he replies.

“I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I couldn’t vanish from sight on my own stomping grounds,” she purrs, her voice unconsciously taking on a tone she  _ knows _ has an effect on him. 

“Why?” He breathes. “I thought you didn’t offer second chances.”

“I don’t,” Nori replies, taking a step closer before she can talk herself out of it and running her finger along his bicep, appreciating the feel of the muscles there. “I thought I would see if you were worth breaking my rule for.” His face is serious as he looks down at her.

“And what did you conclude?”

“I haven’t decided,” she tells him, “but if it works out in your favour I’ll let you know.”

“I can think of a few things I could do to convince you,” he offers and she sucks in a breath, the words sparking a memory of the time that the Dwalin of the future had finally asked her if she would be interested in allowing him to court her and it is that which cuts through the haze of lust and loneliness which has consumed her since she arrived in her own past. 

“No,” she steps back, “not now. I’ll look after the boy,” Nori assures him. “He isn’t my first apprentice and I don’t need you to tell me how important it is that he succeeds here. Fact of it is, if it hadn’t been me I doubt he would have been noticed today, it was bad luck on his part. And you needn’t worry, thieves don’t take advantage of their students, it’s a good way to get stabbed in the back when they graduate. Like I said to his mother, if he appears to be in danger of failing I know of a place that I can take him where he will be safe. It’s the most I can do.”

Dwalin’s face falls. “Then it will have to be enough,” he sighs. “I will be with the lad in the morning,” he informs her. 

“You can bring him,” Nori says after a moment, “but once we meet up you’ll have to leave. I can’t take you to the Guild Hall, and once he’s banded he’s mine to watch out for.”

“He’s one of the heirs,” Dwalin disagrees, “he will always be part of my responsibility.”

“Then I guess you need to learn to  _ share _ , Guard,” she looks him over once more. 

“Tomorrow, then,” Dwalin says stiffly, turning and leaving as quickly as he had approached. Nori lets out a breath and leans against the wall for a moment. 

This is not a complication that she needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Were Nori and Dwalin supposed to have that little interaction at the end? No. What did my inner Nori say when I told her no? "Fuck you, I do what I want." This is apparently my life. I love her anyway.


	16. Though We're Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I left your dinner in the stove," Dori says when she enters the apartment.

Nori hurries back to the apartment she shares with Dori, not willing to risk lingering any longer and being caught by anyone else she does not wish to speak to. She knew that training Kíli would mean having to spend time around Dwalin, she prides herself on the fact that she is not as stupid as some would like to think, but she had hoped to avoid becoming too involved with him for a while longer. Her evening of flirting aside, Nori has no real wish to have Dwalin become a fixture in her life again. Until the quest for Erebor is over and she has determined whether or not she can keep at least the princes safe she does not need the distraction of a love life. Her head needs to stay in the game but there are things she will need to do to improve her chances of success. Training Kíli and Briar is part of that. 

In fact, Briar will be the one that she takes Kíli to when it comes time for him to learn about poisons and their effects. Nori has a feeling that Briar knows about some more obscure options which will be handy for a prince protecting his brother. Not to mention she does not want Mavik anywhere  _ near _ Kíli if it can be helped. If memory serves, Kíli was not the original catalyst for the Guild Master’s death, although he may have been a contributing factor. Mavik is greedy, Nori could see him ignoring the wishes of the gang leaders if not for her insistence that she was taking Kíli as her apprentice.

"I left your dinner in the stove," Dori says when she enters the apartment. "I didn't want to keep our guest waiting for her meal and you certainly took your time."

"It got more complicated than I expected it to," Nori admits, settling at the small table as Dori pulls a plate from the stove to set in front of her before he turns his attention to the kettle that is boiling with a mutter. "I'll have an apprentice by tomorrow afternoon, though."

"Is that wise?" Dori asks. "You said you would never train another after the last one."

Nori pulls a face. Her brother has a point, Staal was not the best apprentice and she had not wanted to train him in the first place. Like Kíli, however, Staal was a case of be trained or be killed. He had made it abundantly clear that he had no wish to learn the trade and no desire to do well. Mavik had foisted him on Nori to prevent her from joining the ranks of the gang leaders after the head of her group had been killed during a raid gone wrong, likely fearing that a position there would result in Nori eventually replacing him. Once, Nori might have liked the idea of becoming Guild Master, but that was before working for Thorin, before Dwalin, before  _ Erebor. _

"This one  _ wants  _ to learn," she tells Dori, picking at her now dry pie. "He isn’t like Staal, he’s been trying to get past his mother and find a sponsor for a while now. He’ll be alright.”

“So you will help him break his mother’s heart the same way that your sponsor helped to break  _ our _ mother’s?” Dori huffs. 

“You would rather I just let him be killed?” Nori demands. “Because that’s what will happen to him if I don’t train him. And the boy dying won’t be good for  _ anybody _ .” She clenched her fist around her fork, her appetite abandoning her. “I’m making him a thief, Mahal has taken care of that already, I’m going to help him become what he needs to be to protect his  _ family _ .” She picks her plate up and scrapes the food into a bucket. The boars will eat anything and their keepers collect household food waste regularly enough that it will not spoil. “This situation is different, and your argument is old and tired. I am what I am, and there is nothing which will change that.” Not even having her heart broken and waking up fourteen years in the past apparently. “Perhaps you should learn to accept it. And try not to be snide when I bring my apprentice by tomorrow. I suspect his mother and uncle will already have given him enough grief over it all.”

“You know very well I would never dream of trying to parent someone else’s child,” Dori sniffs and Nori snorts, well aware of the fact that Dori will mother anyone in grabbing distance if he decides they need it. 

Still, Nori is not in the mood to argue with it. She knows full well that no matter how pleased she is to have finally gotten her way over training Kíli it will come with it’s own set of complications. Instead she makes her way into the small sitting room where Briar is sleepily curled in one of the three wingback chairs which take up the majority of the room. The hobbit has obviously made good use of the small bathroom, her skin free of dirt and her thick curls still drying in the warmth of the room, the fire lit to ward off the chill of the interior of the mountain even in the early summer. 

“You’re back,” Briar smiles. “How did it go?”

“Not quite as well as I hoped, but better than I expected,” Nori slips into her own chair with a sigh, though she knows that Dori will berate her for it when he brings the tea he was obviously preparing through. “You should get Dori to show you a few braids while you’re here,” she adds with a sigh. “He’s good, and it would keep your hair out of your face when we’re travelling.”

“I was going to ask you,” Briar replies, “but… well your hair is so eye catching and I wasn’t sure if there was some hidden meaning to it all when we got here and I saw the way so many dwarves seem to wear elaborate styles.”

“Well,” Nori says, “asking  _ me _ would have been a bit odd. We aren’t family or courting, but hair is Dori’s trade, and he’s good at it.”

“What am I good at?” Dori sighs as he walks in.

“Hair,” Nori tells him. “I was offering your services to Briar.” She gestures to her friend and sees Dori’s fingers twitch.

“Nori said you could teach me some ways of keeping this mess out of the way,” Briar explains. Nori has seen Briar put her hair up before, both now and during the quest. It seemed to involve a large number of small pins, a great deal of muttering and a vast amount of frustration on both Briar’s part and the watching Company.

For a moment she thinks that Dori might refuse, for all the styling and care of hair and beards is Dori’s trade and craft, it is still an intimate thing to do for another. Dori is known for making his own high quality combs, dyes, and oils, the elaborate styles he weaves with ease are popular in this part of town and, in the future where Nori had begun to work for Thorin they had begun to become popular with the upper levels of the city as well. Dwarf hair needs care, and care for it they do, but there are those without close family and no one wants to risk trimming the ends of their beard or hair too short, or clumsily if they are cutting their beard to show grief. That is where dwarves like Dori come in, who trim and style and repair where a clumsy move with a blade has taken a chunk of hair with it. As far as Nori is concerned he should have been able to make his future in a better part of town than this, his work is worth it and there are not enough parties and occasions to show off money and wealth here to bring in the money that she knows her brother should be making. 

“I have never worked with hair quite like yours,” Dori says to Briar after sparing his sister a slightly irritated look, “but I would be delighted to try and see what I can create for you.” Then he scowls back down at his sister and, none too gently, knocks his fist against her knee. “You’re filthy, get out of that chair and get cleaned up.”

“Yes, mother,” Nori mocks, although she is grateful for the normality of the interaction. After her encounter with Dwalin she needs a little bit of normal to take her mind off the fact that she has lost something that none of them is aware she ever had.

Briar giggles softly from her chair, accepting her tea from Dori with quiet gratitude and Nori knows that it will not be long until the hobbit also retires for the night, something she intends on doing as soon as she has washed the road from her skin and so she bids her brother and her friend goodnight as she gets out of the chair with a low groan. Now that she has stopped moving for more than a few minutes and is in a place where she can relax she keenly feels the exhaustion of weeks of travel that has crept through her.

They are fortunate to have a small private bath in this apartment, something Nori knows that Ori has sacrificed in moving out. It is not large enough to stretch out in, at best Nori can kneel in it and submerge herself to nearly her shoulders in hot water that has been heated by the kitchen stove over the course of the day while Dori cooks and heats his kettles for his tea. So long as the tank remains filled, a hot and dirty job in itself, there is hot water for bathing and Nori enjoys it for a time. 

It is not a feeling that can last, and as she sits in the water with her freshly washed hair cascading down her shoulders she feels her chest go tight with tears that she has refused to shed. She has been able to convince herself, for the most part, that she is not broken-hearted over how things with Dwalin ended and that she is not pining over him. Her last couple of encounters with him are going a long way towards showing that such a conviction is a lie at best. She should have stayed away from Ered Luin entirely, she should have made herself a new life in Ered Nimrais or the Iron Hills, and now she is tied here. 

For the most part.

Apprentice thieves travel more than other apprentices, even when they are not of age. Getting it past Dís is going to be a complete pain, but if Kíli is going to be of any use he needs to get used to slipping in and out of places unnoticed and learn to assume a new identity at the drop of a hat. The best place for him to learn that is  _ away _ from all the people who know him. Dís and Thorin will not like it, they do not  _ have _ to like it. Nori will do it regardless, starting with a short trip in a few weeks to escort Briar back to Shire and complete her side of their contract, which she will have to draw up based on their last one and have Briar sign in the morning. Nori is skilled enough at forging the odd signature to place a witness there for the purpose of it.

She refuses to acknowledge that her motives are not just centred around Kíli’s training, although the timing of all of this could have been better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it isn't the done thing to have non-family members do the hair of other dwarves as a rule in fanon, but this idea wouldn't leave me alone and Nori and Dori easily have the most elaborate hair of the Company so it almost stood to reason. I like trying new things with the dwarves, even if I fall back on the thief and guard dynamic for Nori and Dwalin because its _fun_


	17. The Wild Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Meeting my king doesn’t fill my belly, or keep a roof over my head.”

A note from Balin summoning Briar to the Merchant’s Guild that morning arrives before Nori has even managed to sit down for her breakfast. Balin, it appears, has always been an early riser. Still, it solves the problem of what Briar is going to do with herself while Nori is busy getting Kíli registered with the Thieves Guild quite nicely and will allow Nori to take her to where she needs to be before the thief goes on to meet up with her new apprentice.

Briar takes a nervous breath, for all she has handled her time with Nori and Dori well, the thief can tell that the hobbit is less certain of her ability to deal with someone with power and influence behind them. Nori would find it odd given Briar’s familial relationship to one of the Shire leaders, after all Kíli is second in line for the throne but he has still had the same lessons in ruling that Fíli has since the Durin line seems plagued with the premature deaths of many of its heirs, except that she knows that Briar’s connection to the Thainship is far more distant than Kíli’s to the throne. Briar has a multitude of cousins between her and that particular honour, not to mention the fact that the Shire tends towards a more patriarchal set up than dwarvish society does. 

The hobbit has pinned her hair back again, and Nori can see Dori looking the barely tamed curls over with speculative eyes as Briar casts her gaze over the documents she has brought with her again. Her clothes are clean, unworn during her journey to  Thorinuldum, and of better make than anything Nori would bother taking on the road with her. They have obviously been brought specifically for this meeting and the thief is well aware of the importance of good first impressions. Something which the Briar of the quest had failed to make, though through no fault of her own.

The trip is a quick enough one, and Nori points out various shops, buildings and squares that Briar can use to find her way back to Dori’s once she is done with Balin. Neither of them know how long the meeting will take, it might be a simple fifteen minute thing where Briar presents her evidence and delivers her ultimatum and that is the end of it, or it could end up being something which takes the entire day. It depends, for the most part, on what kind of mood Balin is in. Given what she knows of him, Nori suspects that this will turn into something that it takes multiple trips for Briar to resolve and although she warns the hobbit that this might be the case, it has to be done in more general terms about the Merchants Guild rather than more pointed advice on how to deal with Balin himself. There is only one thing she tells her friend that she hopes Briar will take in the spirit it is meant.

“Don’t mention that we’re friends,” Nori says as they get closer to the small building belonging to the guild. The merchants operate out of their own premises, this place is only for registration and regulatory purposes. “My name isn’t all that well known and won’t carry any weight anywhere, but his brother is one of the guards usually assigned to the lads we met yesterday. My name carries about as much value as dust right now with that family. If it comes up I’m your employee and nothing more. It’s better for all concerned that way.” She hands Briar the contract she had asked the hobbit to sign that morning. “Keep that with your papers, in case Balin asks to see it.”

“Do you think he will?” Briar asks, tucking the contract into her satchel with a sad smile.

“I hope he won’t, he’s a crafty old goat by all accounts, though, so better prepared than not,” Nori shrugs.

“I suppose he wouldn’t be the Guild Master if he wasn’t,” Briar observes, then she pauses. “We  _ are _ friends, though, aren’t we?” She asks abruptly. Nori stops walking and looks at the hobbit seriously.

“Of course we are,” she replies, “but being friends with me won’t do you much good.”

“I’m just the silly hobbit,” Briar grins, “what do I know about it all?”

“More than you should,” Nori points out, given all the information she has quietly fed Briar about dwarf customs on their way here.

“Right,” Briar says as they draw close enough to the building that it means they have to part ways, “wish me luck.”

Nori smiles, offers her a small bow and takes her leave quietly. She does not go far, slipping into an alley and then waiting to ensure that Briar enters the building she is aiming for without harassment. Once the hobbit disappears inside she makes her way to the meeting point with K íli. Nori half expects that the young prince will not show, she would be unsurprised if Thorin had not had the lad taken out of the town in the night to keep him, but after waiting for a short time she sees Kíli bounding towards her with Dwalin walking slowly behind him. She pulls one of her little throwing knives from her belt as she leans casually against the wall behind her, using the sharp blade to trim her nails as she waits for them to get a little closer.

“Didn’t think you’d bring him,” she says to Dwalin when both are closer.

“Told you I would,” the burly guard replies with a scowl. “Although if you were thinking Dís and Thorin were going to be difficult about it you’d be right.”

Nori snorts, because of course they would have tried something, but she chooses not to comment on it and tucks her knife away.

“Well, the lad is in good hands,” she grins at Dwalin, “so off you trot and tell them I’ll have him back in time for them to tuck him into bed.” Kíli flushes and Nori feels a twinge of guilt for embarrassing him. “Come on, lad,” she straightens and gestures Kíli over, “sooner we get this done, the sooner I can get started training you. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“Thief,” Dwalin calls as she turns to walk away and Nori feels her stomach clench tightly.

“Rude,” Nori chides, schooling her features to hide the pain of what was once a fond nickname. 

Something shifts in Dwalin’s eyes, however, and for a moment she wonders if he has noticed the hurt he has caused her. Then she looks at Kíli and sees the wounded expression on his face.  _ That _ is something that they will need to work on, the Kíli she remembers was just as bad at hiding when the words of another had cut deeply. Hearing it from Dwalin is probably worse for the lad, Nori knows that  _ both _ of the princes idolise the guard, even if it is not as powerfully as they do their uncle.

“My apologies,” the guard acknowledges with a nod towards Kíli. “His uncle wants to meet with you when you’re done here.”

“And why would I want to do that?” Nori responds. 

“Your king wants you to meet with him, lass,” Dwalin points out. “You’re better going in willingly than having me drag you in.”

“It may be an honour, Guard,” she tells him, “but meeting my king doesn’t fill my belly, or keep a roof over my head.” Nori stalks up to him. “So, I’ll ask it again, why would I want to meet Thorin Oakenshield?”

“Uncle just wants to know who you are,” Kíli says. “He’s not that bad.”

“I’m sure he isn’t,” Nori says, “but I need a bit more than that. I’m not going to walk into his place of power without some promises from your guard here. I’m not going in there and never coming out.”

“Thorin would never…” Dwalin hisses and Nori arches a braided eyebrow at him. She knows that even if Thorin is too noble to make someone like her disappear, he should have others in his employ who will think of it. He used to employ  _ her _ to do that kind of thinking after all. Regardless of the fact that she knows he currently does not have anyone in the position she once filled, and then he had only employed her reluctantly. “I give you my word you will leave in the condition you arrived.”

His word is good she knows and although she has little reason to trust Dwalin in this life Nori nods regardless. 

“Three days,” she says after a moment, “I have other business to attend to and the boy’s training to begin.”

“Uncle really wanted it to be this afternoon,” Kíli cuts in. “I doubt it will take long.”

“First lesson, lad,” Nori grins, “never let anyone who isn’t  _ paying _ you think they have any power over you. I already have an employer I answer to and she requires my presence this afternoon,” she informs Dwalin. He pulls a face.

“Three days it is, then,” he agrees finally. Then he leans in towards her. “If he comes to any harm…” he warns.

“He’s my apprentice, guard,” she snaps, “if anything happens to him it won’t be for lack of action on my part.” He stares at her and she meets his eyes defiantly. After a moment he nods and marches away. She turns to Kíli. “Is he always like that?” She asks him, even though she knows the answer to that already. 

“Yup,” the lad replies brightly. “But he’s alright once you get to know him. Ma always says that Dwalin’s heart is about five times more gentle than his scars would have you think.”

She does not reply to that, simply because she knows that it is true. Dwalin comes across as gruff and hard, but really he is incredibly gentle and caring. It had been something that she had not expected to find in him and something that she had especially enjoyed about their relationship. 

“Marvellous,” she mutters, using her apparent irritation to force her heart to behave itself. This is not, and cannot ever be, her Dwalin. Training Kíli and Briar is too important and she knows that she will have to remind herself of that fact frequently in the coming years. “Let’s get this done, then,” she huffs. “Quickly in, quickly out. We have got a lot to get through today.”

Kíli follows eagerly, not that Nori blames him all things considered. He has wanted this for some time, at least eighteen years from the little she managed to glean from her conversation with Dís, and the lightness of his mood helps to pull Nori from the dark places that her own mind had been going after her encounters with Dwalin over the last two days. He bounces in behind her, and Nori sees a few arched eyebrows and the odd indulgent grin as they pass a number of thieves and spies on their way out for the day. Even she cannot suppress the fond smile she casts in the younger dwarf's direction as they make their way to the records room. 

This is a place kept under strict lock and key, only Mavik, the gang leaders and the clerk have access to it. This clerk is elderly, likely long overdue replacing but for the fact that no one suited to the task has signed on in the last few decades and those who are already have high positions in the guild that they prefer to work in. No one  _ wants _ to be responsible for ensuring that the identity of every thief in the town remains safe and generally it is a task taken on by one of the spies as they get older and have less desire to be trying to make their way into places that they do not belong. 

"Alstin," Nori greets the white haired dwarf as they enter the room. 

She ushers Kíli into one of the chairs at the desk the elderly dwarf sits behind before closing the door behind her and locking it. The walls of this room are thick and the back of the door is padded to help absorb sound. There are plenty who want as little about their identity to be known as possible and Nori has already decided that it would be for the best if Kíli were among that number.

"New blood?" Alstin says as he peers at Kíli. "Boy looks familiar," he says after a beat. "Can't place him though."

"All the better people can't," Nori agrees. "My new apprentice, Kíli, son of Fesli." The lad stares at her. He is named for his father, but his mother is of higher rank and so should be the one mentioned. 

"You mean son of Dís," Alstin corrects, even though there was nothing technically wrong with using the boy's father's name.

"His mother has requested discretion," Nori shrugs. "Given her station I thought it best we register him under his father's family, and pick a suitable alias before we leave the room. Mavik and the gang leaders will need to know his identity, of course, and I'll tag his home personally over the next few days."

"Wise," Alstin agrees, "very wise. Not the first time we've had to do it, boy," he explains to Kíli. "Particularly if it's a family with a bit of wealth or social aspirations. Not that it's ever stopped this one from digging their identities out, mind, got yourself a good sponsor." He grins at Nori who pulls a face. 

He reaches into a drawer and pulls out some forms and a leather folder, quickly writing down the relevant details. Like the Merchant's Guild, thieves tend towards efficiency and pre-printed forms are a must for them. Once he has finished he has Kíli sign, sands the ink and then folds the parchment and tucks it into a narrow space between the leather and the soft cotton which lines it. Both watch as he stitches the cotton in place with quick, almost invisible, stitches. Then he picks up another form, squints at Kíli for a moment and begins to write again.

“There’s a low level town guard who owes us a favour or twelve,” Alstin grins wickedly and Nori decides she has no desire to know. “He’s married, got three sons. We’ll give him a fourth. For as long as you’re registered with us, lad, you’re Cadan, son of Hadan. Luckily, you won’t need to know much about him, got your Ma, we’ll say it was Caja, with child long before he married, kept his distance on account of her being a member of our guild, barely supported you and you don’t want nothing to do with him on account of him not having anything to do with you.” He jots out a quick note, folds and seals it, and sets it into a box at the edge of the desk with a hastily written direction on it. “Common enough story in our line of work,” he continues as he places the new paperwork in front of Kíli. “Don’t think your sponsor even  _ knows _ who  _ her _ Da is.”

“Never needed to,” Nori replies.

“Do I  _ have  _ to have any living connections here?” Kíli asks.

“It’s easier if anyone gets suspicious,” Nori explains, “You don’t want people trying to find out who Cadan is only for him to be an orphan with no idea who his parents are. Hadan is obviously known to enough people that he will be perfectly happy to pay off his debt, and Caja, if I remember right, was killed three years ago while trying to get into your uncle’s place. As far as we knew, she never had any children and no living family who wanted much of anything to do with her.”

“That’s the lass,” Alstin agrees. “She wasn’t all that good at her job anyway, always resented it. You need to keep it simple and believable. Hadan will play his part well enough, owes us enough, and it’s in our interest to get you trained and useful to us.”

“I suppose I can manage it,” Kíli agrees after a little thought, creating a basic signature on the spot which makes it look like Cadan can hardly write. 

“You catch on quick, boy,” Alstin grins. “I can see why you wanted him, lass.”

“The lad’s a natural,” Nori agrees and sees Kíli flush slightly at the praise. She doubts it is something he has ever heard in the past. “We done?”

“Aye,” this sheet of parchment is tucked carefully into the leather folder as well, unfolded so that anyone who looks can see who it belongs to through a small window in the front. “Here’s his band. You’re to wear that when training,” he tells Kíli, handing him a simple piece of green cloth with a rune stitched into the middle of it. “Left wrist is best,” he explains, “in case one of us catches you without your sponsor around.” He looks the lad over. “You’ll be going to the costumers next I assume?” He asks. Nori glances at her new apprentice.

“He is a little clean, isn’t he?” She chuckles. “But I can handle it, some of my brother’s old things should fit him, and Dori never throws out something that he might be able to use later. Besides, I’m going on a trip in about three weeks and dragging him along with me, better we do some of the early stuff where none of his friends can see him.”

Alstin waves a hand dismissively, his part done. “Well, whatever you do, I don’t need to know it. Off you trot, you interrupted a nice nap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the UK has gone back into lock down. Yay. Which means that my kids are off school again for the next 6 weeks. Unlike last time, however, (for those who read Wild Magic) the schools have actually set up online learning. Which means that the children have absconded with my computer and the family laptop. This means that I have nothing to type on during the day and no time to do it besides. What with my own studying, and the house, and the children and all the rest. So, updates once a week until further notice unfortunately. And to my readers in the US, keep safe.


	18. This Is My Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The closer she gets to Briar, the angrier she becomes over the way that things ended during the quest

Nori drags Kíli out of the guild building as soon as Alstin is done with them. As she had said earlier, they have a great deal to cover and her debate with Dwalin has put them behind. Although that is, in part, her fault. She has always enjoyed a bit of a debate with the large guard, although that was due to the fun that came after. They begin to make their way to the merchant’s district, Nori intends to linger near the Guild for a time to see if she can determine whether Briar has left yet, but it is also the best place for her to point out various things that Kíli needs to learn over the course of his first days.

“Keep your fingers to yourself,” she tells him. “I know you’re good, but there are rules to all of this, and things you should know before you go taking anything that doesn’t belong to you.” She arches an eyebrow at him and he ducks his head, tucking his hands into the pockets of his too fine coat.

“Alright,” he mutters. “I thought, since I know how to do it, we’d start right away.”

“Do you  _ need _ to?” Nori asks, slowly looking him up and down. “I know it’s a game to you, lad, but for the vast majority of us this is what we do to live. You learn right and you’ll be doing it to keep your brother alive once he’s sat on his throne, or whatever it is your uncle lords it over the rest of us on.”

“Uncle doesn’t do that,” Kíli objects.

“Does he not?” Nori mentally notes to dial back her annoyance with Thorin. She had thought that given it had been over a year since she had fallen into the past she would have made her peace with how the quest ended a little. The closer she gets to Briar, however, the angrier she becomes over the way that things ended during the quest. “As it is, your uncle has no bearing on how I train you. You’re light fingered, I know you are and I wouldn’t have noticed you if I wasn’t on the alert for it,” he straightens, “ _ but _ you’ve signed the forms, you’ve taken the band, and now you need to learn to do things  _ our _ way.” She makes eye contact with him. “You’re, what, sixty-three? Sixty-four?”

“Sixty-three,” he says sullenly, “but I’ll be sixty-four in three months.”

“So too old to be acting like a petulant, spoiled brat,” she informs him. Originally, he learnt this lesson after nearly dying from picking the wrong pocket in a few years. This time he will learn it, but she suspects that it is going to be a more difficult lesson all around. “And old enough that you should be coming to the end of your training, not only just beginning. I am double your age, lad, more than, and I have been doing this longer than you’ve been alive. And I’ll keep doing it longer than you’ll live if you don’t calm down and listen.”

“You’re supposed to teach me,” he complains.

“Yes, but I’m also supposed to keep you alive and as safe as I can,” she sighs. “Our path isn’t a safe or easy one, so we don’t go looking for unnecessary trouble. We steal what we need, we don’t get greedy and we don't play games.” Mostly. There are still some who view it all as a big joke but many of those who do are missing fingers and even hands by the time they complete their first century of life. Which has no bearing at all on Nori’s behaviour in Rivendell during the quest. Tweaking elf noses will always be necessary regardless of whether it is the best idea. Not that it usually is. Not that she really cares. 

The lad nods but his expression is still downcast. 

"Kíli…" she shakes her head. "That will be the last time I use that name while I train you. There may be the odd time where the use of your true name is necessary, but from this moment you are Cadan. I know you've had big dreams of this day.  _ I _ had big dreams of mine too. But this is a trade like any other, only the consequences of not abiding by the rules are greater. Today, and the following weeks until we leave for the Shire, I'm going to teach you how to watch others and learn all you can from what you see of them."

"What's the point in that?" He demands.

"If you cannot watch, how will you learn?" She tilts her head. "How will you know if a person means you or your family harm if you cannot detect it until it's too late? But, more importantly, how will you know if the person you’ve chosen to steal from is off limits or not if you cannot see at a glance?" He stares at her. "You keep getting caught because you keep targeting Guild members," she explains, holding out her arm so that he can see the buttons on the sleeve of her coat. None of them match, as though they have been replaced multiple times in the past, and none of them are necessary, the cuffs are wide enough for her to get her hand through without them. Each button, however, has a marking upon it that is the same as the symbol stitched onto the fabric band Kíli now wears on his left wrist. The three buttons on her right sleeve are simple wood and all of them match. At a glance it would be little more than a quick repair job. “We have numerous tells, and they change over time as the guards become more aware of them, but until you learn how to spot them at a glance, I’m not letting you loose on purses.”

She half expects him to argue again, she certainly did in his place, but instead he nods a little sullenly and it puts her in mind of all the times that she saw Thorin and Dís reprimand both Kíli and Fíli. Both boys have always taken such things strongly to heart, wanting both their mother and uncle to be proud of them with a desperation that Nori has never been able to understand, perhaps because she long ago made her peace with the idea that her mother would never be proud of her trade. The idea that Kíli might want her to be proud of him, even this early in their new relationship, is a strange one and it makes her wonder how desperate he was becoming for his trade to be acknowledged before this. She knows that Fíli has long been praised for following in Thorin’s footsteps and somehow that makes the whole thing worse. Instead of drawing attention to it, and to the fact that she is more familiar with his behaviour than she should be, she gestures to the busy square in front of them. 

“Tell me what you see,” she instructs.

The square is full of various dwarves and Men going about their business. Much as her people dislike having Men in their towns, it is a necessary fact when it comes to trade and diplomatic arrangements, no matter how awkward it makes things. As she expects, Kíli’s powers of observation are rudimentary at best in this kind of situation. She has no doubt that outside town when he is hunting he is among the most skilled, and she knows that he has an enviable amount of patience when it comes to some things, but that is a different kind of watchfulness and it will be a harder skill to learn when the mark he is watching is always moving. 

Nori spots Balin before Kíli does, though in this life she does not know him, and she can tell that he is unhappy from the set of his shoulders and the way that he strides from the guild building without even glancing at the papers in his hands as he usually would. Balin has never been good at just walking away from his work. From the way he is clenching his fists about them, in fact, Nori would say that he has just been given some bad news. Which probably means Briar got her way, one way or the other. She watches the other dwarf leave for a moment before turning her attention to another that she recognises as another thief.

“Tell me about him,” she orders Kíli, dragging his attention away from Balin. 

He flushes at being caught with his attention elsewhere but Nori instead carefully guides him towards the things that he is  _ meant _ to see and then explains the things that he  _ should _ see. Much to her surprise he takes it in quickly and eagerly, absorbing the information that she gives him and applying it where he can. Nori is hardly surprised when Kíli correctly identifies three other thieves in the hour that follows until the empty feeling in her stomach tells her that it is time that they found something to eat. She gestures for him to follow her, lifting a purse from a passing merchant as she goes with a wink in Kíli’s direction. 

“You did that so easily,” he whispers as they keep walking, matching her casual pace with his own. “It was like you didn’t even think.”

“Practice, Cadan,” Nori replies, “and learning what my sponsor tried to teach me, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to learn at the time.”

She finds a street vendor, buying two meat pies which she would like to believe do not contain rat except that she knows better in this part of town with this type of vendor, particularly since she is familiar with this one and Dibl has been caught putting rat in his pies before. Still, there is no point mentioning it to Kíli, who is happily devouring it with the attitude of a starving creature. Less than necessarily palatable food will be something he will have to get used to eating. Finding out information about possible threats often means going into the places that are not at all nice. They carry on for a while, Nori pointing out the odd dwarf for Kíli to look over and tell her what he notices about them, until finally the lad pauses with a frown.

“Why are they all looking at me like that?” He asks her as another of their people walks past him with a suspicious look up and down.

“You don’t belong here,” Nori replies, taking another turn towards Dori’s apartment. Now that he is noticing he will fight the need for disguise less. “Your clothes are too good, you’re too clean. It’s nothing a few weeks on the road wouldn’t fix for that outfit, even the best made clothes wear quickly on the road.”

“But I’m not of age,” he reminds her.

“That’s the fun thing about our trade, lad,” she smirks. “We tend to ignore little rules like that.” She dangles her pilfered purse in front of him. “The finer points of property ownership aside, a lot of the rules aren’t particularly compatible with our lifestyle. Your mother wanted us to be discrete about this, so a lot of the early lessons are better off happening elsewhere. You’re most likely to be caught in the first six months or so and all the town guard knows who you are.”

“It was one of the reasons Ma and Uncle didn’t want me training,” Kíli admits.

“I had a feeling,” she nods. “Well, either way I have contractual obligations that take me out of town for a while in a few weeks. It would be as good a time as any to spirit you away and make a proper start on things. Until then, I need to teach you how to fight the way we do, and how to run and dress. There’s no point teaching you to steal if you’re going to get yourself spotted in a moment.”

“That makes sense,” he nods. “Where are we going?”

“My brother’s place,” Nori points to Dori’s small shop, “he still has a lot of my younger brother’s old clothes, we can switch out some of what you’re wearing for that, and Dori should have some idea of what we can do with your hair as well.”

  
“I’m not the best with braiding my own hair,” the lad objects.

“Better start practicing then, hadn’t you?” Nori shakes her head. “You’re an apprentice now. Time to grow up.”

They slip into the apartment through the back door rather than using the steps that go up there from the shop, entering the living room on quiet feet to find Briar scowling at some of the papers she had brought with her from the Shire in the chair in front of the fire which she had claimed the previous night.

“Oh!” She exclaims as she looks up and sees them. “Hello.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired. How do teachers do it with 30 kids every day? I only have to worry about two and my mind is swimming with it all.


	19. Out Of The Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kíli, at your service,” he almost purrs

For the second time in as many days Nori has the pleasure of seeing Kíli flush and fall silent. She knows that he is perfectly capable of flirting, she has seen another version of him charm just about anyone he chooses to. Including elves. And Briar once he had stopped throwing her plates about. The dwarf would laugh at seeing him so awestruck by her hobbit friend, except that he recovers himself quickly enough when Briar smiles at him with a light blush of her own. Then he bows and she decides she might be better off clipping him about the ear instead.

“Kíli, at your service,” he almost purrs, and Nori settles for rubbing her forehead with one hand. It  _ is _ only his first day after all.

“Briar-Rose Baggins at yours,” the hobbit replies, her own smile something that is shy and yet carries a flirty air about it as well. Not something a dwarf could really pull off well, too much hair, but the hobbit manages it and Nori wonders if bringing Kíli here while Briar was still in residence has been a mistake. Perhaps she should have avoided them meeting again. 

“No,” she tells the lad firmly, clipping him across the back of the head for good measure. “No flirting with our employer, it’s bad for business.” She glances at Briar. “And don’t you go encouraging him.” Kíli gives her an injured look, which turns into full scale puppy eyes pouting when Briar laughs. “You’re supposed to be using the other name,” she reminds him.

“His brother called him Kíli yesterday,” Briar points out. “I pay attention.”

“Of course you do,” Nori sighs.

“Who would I even tell, anyway?” The hobbit adds. Her eyes turn back on Kíli and for a moment Nori thinks she will say something else, but instead the hobbit ducks her head as she catches her lower lip between her teeth. 

“Fair,” Nori acknowledges before grabbing the young prince’s arm. “Lets get you out of those clothes and into something more suitable.” She continues as she drags him from the room. Then she glances back at Briar. “You meeting with Balin again tomorrow?”

“No,” Briar huffs, “your description was pretty accurate. And he’s decided that he wants a few days to examine things before he discusses the topic further. Why?”

“I need to teach this one to fight like we do,” the thief replies, “and you could use a new partner to practice against. I know a place if you’re up for it.”

“Not got anything else to do,” Briar waves her hand, curling up in the chair once more as she scowls at another document.

“I can already fight!” Kíli objects as Nori drags him up a narrow ladder and into the small roof space above the two storey apartment.

“Not like we do,” she shakes her head as she looks around.

There are several trunks up here, all of them stuffed full of old tunics, trousers and coats which Nori, Ori and Dori have stopped wearing over the years for one reason or another but which were in too good shape to consign to the rag bags. Looking at him, the slightly too large tunic and heavy coat, Nori knows that the casual observer would expect Kíli to be fairly slight beneath it all. She knows better, however, having seen him on the quest and over the years running up to it in her first life. Kíli is an archer, and an expert swordsman, and he has the build and musculature to match. He is not, and nor will he ever be, as thick and broad as Dwalin, but that would not be appropriate for his trade in any case. Thieves and spies tend to a slightness of build that does not ease with the loss of youth. Fíli may one day take on a build similar to that of Dwalin and his uncle, but Kíli will always be lighter.

It takes Nori a while to find the right trunk, Dori’s clothing has always tended towards the more elaborate and eye-catching colours and styles. It is not as obviously expensive as the make and cut of the clothing Kíli wears, but it draws the eye. A thief should not be concerned about being  _ seen _ , but they should be concerned about deliberately drawing the eye of those around them. Nori’s preferred hairstyle, while elaborate, is not too far out of the common way, and is an excellent place for hiding certain tools that she might need besides, but she would never parade around in the clothes that Dori wears. Those are the clothes of a dwarf who wants to be  _ noticed _ .

Nori’s old things may fit Kíli, since she prefers to wear overlarge tunics and coats herself, as does Ori who is broader across the shoulders than she is anyway. They also both prefer more muted tones, the kinds of colours that are most commonly seen among the traders in the parts of town that Nori and her kind tend to stick to. Unless they are feeling particularly adventurous anyway, and Nori has a few things for that purpose which she keeps carefully stored in a chest in her room. She roots through a couple of trunks until she finds what she’s looking for, pulling out several pairs of worn leather trousers, a number of patched and faded tunics in in greys, blues and brown and a leather coat of Ori’s which she knows her brother hardly wore on account of a growth spurt not long after Dori gave it to him.

“Try these on,” she orders as she makes her way down the ladder. “Bring down what fits, pack away what doesn’t.” 

He nods, already removing his coat as she slips out of sight, and Nori makes her way back to the living room and collapses into her chair.

“He can’t be that bad,” Briar comments with a small grin.

“He’ll be brilliant once I’ve filed off the rough edges,” Nori agrees. “And if he can remember not to use his real name when he’s working.”

“It’s his first day,” the hobbit advises. “I’m sure with a bit of time he’ll get used to it.” She tilts her head. “What should  _ I _ call him then?”

For a moment, Nori is tempted to tell the hobbit to just call him Kíli, because that is the lad’s name and if things play out as they did before there will come a time when the lass will need to be ignorant of the prince’s alter ego. For the moment, however, Nori knows that it is better that Briar call him by his alias.

“Cadan,” the thief replies. “When he’s working he’s Cadan.”

Briar mutters the name a few times, her features pulled into a frown. Then she falls silent with her eyes on the door and her lips parted. Nori glances in the same direction and smirks. Kíli stands there in some of the clothes she had given him, Ori’s old coat loose at his side. The dark grey tunic is tighter on him than his normal clothing, although not so tight as to restrict his movement, and he has left the collar a little more open than Nori knows is normal for him. It is shorter as well and since the leather trousers, though soft and well worn, are also tight on him the thief can understand why Briar has been struck silent at the sight of him. Nori looks him over, although he seems ignorant of it in favour of shooting a cocky grin at Briar, seemingly over his bashfulness. Nori suspects that it is more a case of Kíli using the clothes as a disguise to hide behind, she knows another version of him well enough to see the momentary flicker of doubt in his dark eyes.

“Not  _ bad _ , Cadan,” Nori purrs as she gets to her feet to examine him. “Let's get a look at the coat,” she adds. 

He puts it on obediently and Nori can see that it is an almost perfect fit, if not quite as loose as his current coat and so not as well suited for the use of his bow. Overall the effect is of a young dwarf who has recently piled on that last bit of muscle which comes with the coming of age. Something which Kíli’s lack of beard would corroborate. And that is something else that she needs to address with the lad, although it is not something that she will do with Briar present. There are some customs that she is willing to break with the lass when the two of them are alone, but Kíli is not deeply involved enough with Nori’s life for her to trust him with how close she is to the hobbit. 

“Really?” Kíli asks, his voice hopeful.

“Absolutely,” Nori agrees. “All we need to do now is dirty you up a little bit.” She tugs on her beard thoughtfully, then gestures for him to follow her into her room. He looks at her warily, then follows. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Mistress Baggins,” Nori says as she looks through a drawer, “I know how sensitive young dwarves tend to be about their beards, but I have to ask about yours. I’ve only ever seen babes with that little fuzz on their cheeks.” Kíli’s expression darkens a little.

“Uncle and my mother wouldn’t let me train,” he tells her and abruptly Nori remembers an overheard argument eight years in the future.

_ “If you will not let me train and embrace my craft like a true dwarf, then I shall not  _ **_be_ ** _ a true dwarf!” Kíli shouted. “How can I be?” _

_ “No son of Durin’s line should be nearly as hairless as an elf, Kíli,” Thorin replied, “cease this unseemly display and wear your beard and braids as you should. Your shaving distresses your mother greatly, can you not see that?” _

_ “And yet my misery does not,” Kíli pointed out. “Until I can learn my trade, I will remain shaved, as you keep your beard cut close as a vow to reclaim Erebor.” _

_ “It is  _ **_not_ ** _ the same thing,” Thorin had snarled. “You are of age, and you have seen the dangers of your  _ **_trade_ ** _ , it is time you grew up instead of behaving like a spoiled child.” _

The sound of Kíli’s voice brings her back to the present, the lad is explaining his decision to shave every couple of months, since dwarf hair does not grow as rapidly as that of Men, and she can see him rubbing his chin slightly nervously. 

“So, you’ve been doing it to get back at your Ma and Uncle?” Nori concludes and Kíli nods.

“It seems silly now that you say it like that,” he admits sheepishly.

“That’s because it  _ is _ ,” she laughs, “but it sounds like something a lot of us would do.” She passes him a soft bag. “Mix a spoonful of that with hot water morning and night,” she instructs as he takes it. Kíli sniffs and pulls a face. “It will help your beard grow back in faster. By the time we get back from our trip you should have a proper faceful. Your Ma will hardly recognise you.”

“Do I have to?” He asks.

“Of course not,” Nori shakes her head. “But the more beard you have the easier it is to change your appearance on occasion. It’s useful, but it’s up to you.” He nods and tucks the bag into the pocket of the coat that he is still wearing. “Might as well start practicing your braids too, lad,” she tells him, “find yourself some cheap silver beads to wear, and if you’re stuck for ideas it’s my brother’s trade, he can probably teach you a few things.”

“He won’t mind?” Kíli enquires, obviously surprised.

"We'd have to pay him, of course," Nori shrugs, "and Dori has his opinions of our trade much like everyone else. But you won't be the first apprentice I've brought to him for tips and tricks." Kíli looks dejected and she sighs. "I won't lie, lad, our trade isn't a popular one, and opinions of it are low. I can't make you something you're not, but I can teach you to embrace what you are and use it to your advantage and that of your family. Mahal gave us this for a reason, although only He knows what the grand plan there was.”

“Does it ever stop hurting?” He asks. “Hearing them talk so negatively about us, I mean.”

“No,” Nori admits after a moment. A past her might have gentled the answer and lied to him. This her has seen and experienced too much to do that to the boy, and she knows that he will handle it better if she is honest with him than if he discovers her in a lie. “You just get better at not letting them see that they’ve hurt you. As wonderful as my older brother can be, he can be an utter bastard about my trade sometimes.” Kíli winces. “Has your brother said something?” She frowns. The Fíli of her past had always been supportive of his brother needing to learn his trade.

“No,” Kíli shakes his head and grins. “He’s happy, well, he says it’s ‘about time I got out of the forge and stopped embarrassing the entire family with how useless I am’, which amounts to the same thing.” 

“Sounds about right,” Nori mutters and Kíli tilts his head curiously. She shrugs it off and makes her way out of the room. “I’ve got a younger brother as well,” she adds, “I know what it’s like.” She looks him over, then looks at the door into the living room where Briar is likely to still be in her chair looking over her documents.

Nori is not above a little bit of matchmaking when the opportunity presents itself, and knowing that there is obviously some sort of attraction between Kíli and Briar regardless of how they have met is illuminating in some ways. It is also something that she will need to think about before she allows the pair to spend too much time together, and there are some things about hobbits as a race she will need some answers to as well. Better safe than sorry, after all.

“Get home,” she orders the prince. “I’m sure your uncle and mother have some lesson or other they want you back for.”

“I thought I could…” Kíli looks towards the living room with visible disappointment. 

“Seducing one’s employer is frowned upon,” Nori laughs. “In some situations anyway. This is one of them.  _ Home _ . I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”

For a moment she thinks he will protest, but instead he takes his leave of Briar, quite prettily really given everything that Nori saw of his and Fíli’s behaviour towards the hobbit during the quest, and departs the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have come to the following conclusions over the last week; crisis schooling sucks, D&D is far too deep of a pit to climb out of, Farewell by dArtagnan and Patty Gurdy might well be my new favourite song, and I never want to work on the story I'm supposed to be working on, I want to work on the one I have a bigger buffer for (hint, it isn't this one).


	20. This Is Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Doesn’t the thought you might get caught scare you?” Kíli tilts his head.

Nori spends the next two days making sure that Kíli watches what happens around them, her original plan having been scuppered by a late night message from Balin for Briar. She knows full well that none of this is what Kíli really wants to learn or practice. He believes he is meant to be a thief, he should be learning to pick pockets and locks. Nori knows all too well, however, that those who do not learn to watch do not last long. He is exactly the way that she remembers him being; bright, mischievous and far more intelligent than he has ever wanted anyone to realise.

Unfortunately for him, Nori knows it and she knows how rapidly he is capable of learning. 

The two of them entertain themselves, somewhat, in the square near the Merchant’s Guild. First, because there is a good variety of people there to examine, and second, because Briar returns there several times over the course of the next day and the one following. She seems happier each time they see her, and Nori notes the way that Kíli will watch her walking past for longer than he should. 

It interests her. 

In the future Kíli hardly paid much attention to Briar at all, she had been his host in the Shire and her nerves had marked her as easily riled and thus a source of some entertainment. Nori understands why now, of course, but at the time she had been suspicious of this so-called thief who fretted and fussed over dishes and doilies. She has already acknowledged that she saw no indication of regard on Briar’s part for Kíli, or his brother, for all her obvious discomfort on that first night in her home; the hobbit had quickly managed to bury the majority of her emotions beneath a mask. Nori’s mistake had been to pay the hobbit little regard at all once she had determined that Briar was not at all what the wizard had painted her as. At that point she had become more of a liability than anything else and although the Company had all agreed to keep her as safe as possible, they had also agreed it would be best not to get too close to her. Even Briar’s disappearance in the Goblin Tunnels under the Misty Mountains had only brought a slight feeling of guilt that they had not encouraged her to turn back when they had stopped in Rivendell for weeks. 

There had certainly been no sign that either of the young princes had been more affected by the development than anyone else. If anything Bofur had felt it the most keenly and even that had seemed to be only marginal. She should have paid more attention, but Nori can freely admit that she had other concerns at the time. What she does know is that if Kíli had shown any interest in Briar during the quest for Erebor she would have seen it. As she has observed before, Kíli has never been good at keeping his thoughts from his face. It is something that she plans to school him in once he gets used to watching everything going on around him. 

He flushes whenever Nori reminds him that they are supposed to be paying attention to other things and she wonders if perhaps she should keep Kíli and Briar apart as much as possible before they leave for the Shire. That Kíli is fascinated by her is clear, but Nori does not think that it is something that should be encouraged to progress further until he is deeper into his apprenticeship. She will be asking Briar to teach the lad about poisons and antidotes, in a few years at least, and once he is closer to being of age Nori will give him a little more slack to seduce and pursue anyone he might like.

“Never flirt with your employer, lad,” she warns him again as she clips the back of his head. “It gets messy quickly.”

“I wasn’t…” Kíli starts to argue and Nori raises her eyebrow at him. “She’s  _ your _ employer.”

“As long as you’re my apprentice she’s  _ yours _ as well,” the thief shrugs. “And as a general rule any kind of relationship beyond a working relationship with an employer only leads to trouble.”

“It didn’t look like a working relationship to me,” Kíli mutters.

“I’ve worked with her before,” Nori replies, “and she pays well.”

“How  _ did _ you come to work for her? I’ve seen you work the last few days, you don’t  _ need _ to take on the work of a guard, so why do it?”

Nori hesitates for a moment. She has no desire to tell Kíli an outright lie, but nor does she want to discourage him from his path either. Much as she cares about Briar of now, and the Briar of the future, she did not simply take on the job for the money that she would earn.

“The job before I met Briar ended badly,” Nori sighs, pulling Kíli out of sight and hearing of the masses. “We got the money but… My partner decided to make his way to the Iron Hills and start over there. I decided to come home and live off the money I’d earnt for a few months before deciding whether I wanted to work with another thief again. It takes a lot to trust another of our trade, lad, regardless of the rules, and it can take time to find someone new to put that trust in. While I was in the bar making my decision I happened to spot Briar talking to three Men. As they like to say, it takes one to know one, and those Men did not intend to do well by her, no matter what contract that they may have entered into. To buy myself time I offered to do the job that she was asking of those Men for a fraction of the price. We came to know one another, and we work well together.” Then she grins. “And it’s always nice to be able to work a job that the guards can’t touch me for.”

“Doesn’t the thought you might get caught scare you?” Kíli tilts his head.

“Of course,” Nori nods, “and that keeps me careful. The Guild won’t come for us if we get caught, lad, so it’s in our interest to  _ not _ get caught.” 

She tosses her head, her hair the last few days has been styled in a multitude of small braids after Dori cornered her for offering his services around without consulting him and the wooden beads that he has woven through them clack as she does so. It is a far cry from her usual style, but there is a comfort in it at the moment, especially as she knows that later on she has to go and meet with Thorin. 

“Uncle has already said that they won’t be able to do much if I get caught,” Kíli mumbles. “And he was furious when Ma said that I was finally being trained. He says the fact that I’m supposed to be a thief is an embarrassment to the line.”

“ _ He’s _ one to talk,” Nori snorts derisively, although she knew that the sentiment was going to come up. Kíli stares at her. “His grandfather’s greed brought a dragon down on Erebor and drove our people from the mountain,” she points out, “if  _ anyone _ should be considered an embarrassment, it’s him.” Kíli huffs a laugh, his lips twisting a little wryly at her statement and Nori silently congratulates herself on avoiding accidentally revealing something of the future to the lad. The expression fades quickly, however, and she sighs. “His opinion isn’t unusual, lad, we both know that.  _ My _ Ma… my Ma wept for three days after I told her that I was called to this. My brother likes to argue that it contributed to her death, but the truth is her lungs weren’t right after Erebor fell, the dragon fire did something to them.”

Kíli nods, it is not unusual to find that those dwarves who managed to survive facing the dragon have suffered with their breathing in the years following. It had taken his own father in the end, she knows, although Fesli had never been directly involved in facing Smaug, he had been nearby.

"It killed my Da too," he says softly.

"I know, lad," Nori lays a hand on his shoulder, "I was in town when the announcement was made." She wasn't, but he doesn't need to know that she found out because Dwalin told her one day in the future. A day that will not happen now.

A bell chimes from the nearby Merchant’s Guild, most of the time in the town is set by them as the Guild insists on strict timekeeping for the purpose of contracts, shipments and deliveries. Nori sighs, time to go and see Thorin.

“Are you really going to meet with him?” Kíli asks as he bounds after her. 

He routinely leaves in the middle of the afternoon to attend weapons practice and lessons in the myriad subjects that a prince of the line needs to be aware of. It cuts deeply into the time that Nori has to train the lad. Sadly for Thorin and Dís, Nori knows that Kíli learnt the majority of everything he needs to know years ago and all of this is mostly a refresher, probably to stop her from teaching him everything that he needs to know.

“Why wouldn’t I?” She asks. 

“He’s  _ Thorin _ ,” Kíli hisses softly, glancing furtively around him and Nori internally laments that she has not yet been able to get him out of town, he desperately needs to learn the role of Cadan.

“So he is,” Nori shrugs, “but that doesn’t mean all that much to someone like me, lad, except that his purse should be a richer prospect.”

“He doesn’t think you’ll come,” Kíli informs her. 

“Well, then he’s bound for disappointment,” she grins, in more ways than one no doubt. She suspects that Thorin is hoping that if she fails to meet with him the Thieves Guild will declare her an unfit mentor. That is  _ not _ how her guild works. 

She walks with her head held high, and she suspects that she looks far more confident than Kíli expects her to. Even in her previous life Nori had never marched through the streets around Thorin’s home. Her job was to remain unseen and gather what information she could to keep the royal family safe. This time, however, her job is to train Kíli and that means that the people here will need to become accustomed to seeing her with him. Although the sooner that they manage to give him a more easily altered appearance the better.

Dwalin is waiting for them when they arrive, and she probably should have expected to see him but it is still a shock all the same. She has spent so long trying not to think about him and the past she has with him that he does not remember that the slamming of her heart at the sight of him is entirely unexpected. She only saw him a few days ago, after all, but the more time she spends with Kíli the more she feels like the person she became in the years between starting to work for Thorin and the quest. She cannot afford to be that person at the moment. That person is not the rough and ready thief that Dwalin, Dís, and Thorin expect, she is not the sister that Dori knows so well. That person, in fact, is the one who, until meeting Briar and taking on Kíli, has only ever been seen by Ori.

“Your Ma’s waiting,” Dwalin says to Kíli, apparently oblivious to Nori’s sudden inner turmoil. “I’ll take your friend to your uncle.”

“Sponsor,” Nori corrects, “we don’t want this coming across as anything other than what it is.”

Dwalin frowns and she catches Kíli glancing between them warily.

“Maybe I should come too,” he offers.

“No, lad,” Nori shakes her head. “I have no doubt that things are going to be said that you’re better off not hearing. By all accounts your uncle has a harsh tongue on him. And there’s no sense in upsetting your Ma more than we have to. Off you go, I can handle myself.” Kíli hesitates for a moment longer.

“I’ll stay with her, lad, don’t worry,” Dwalin tells him gently. “I gave my word she would leave in the same condition she came.” Kíli waits a moment longer, then nods and heads inside. “Shall we?” Dwalin asks her.

“Lead on, guard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early this week on account of assignment deadlines, studying and more D&D. Always with the D&D. Also, Jimiel has encouraged me to attempt to crochet a Fili and Kili. This will either go well or end up a complete disaster.


	21. Paid You With Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You planning on sharing?” Nori replies, falling too easily into her old ease of speaking with him.

“You just won me ten gold,” Dwalin comments as they walk, his tone warmer than the cool and cautious one that she knows he reserves for strangers.

“You planning on sharing?” Nori replies, falling too easily into her old ease of speaking with him. It is a little bit distressing all things considered.

“I might,” Dwalin shrugs, and the gesture would be nonchalant if Nori did not know him so much better than the large guard realises. There is a tightness to his shoulders that shows he is not as relaxed as he might want to pretend. “I was hoping to use it to persuade you to give me a second try.”

“I told you I would let you know if I changed my mind,” Nori says as she stops in her tracks. Dwalin sighs.

“I know,” he replies, “but I liked you when I met you,” he rubs the back of his neck a little awkwardly, which is far more adorable than Nori wants to admit.

“You had a funny way of showing it,” she grumbles, falling back on barbed responses instead.

“Aye, well you can’t expect a dwarf to shove their own morals aside just because a tumble might turn into more,” Dwalin responds. 

“Can’t expect them to break their own code either,” Nori shoots back. “Besides, now I’ve got to look out for the lad, I don’t need to be mixing with the guard while I do that. It’s bad for my image.” She huffs, but does not point out that it does not fit with Dís’ request for discretion either. 

“You telling me to back off?” Dwalin asks her.

“Do I need to?” Nori demands in return.

“No,” Dwalin looks down at her, neither having moved from the middle of the corridor. “I can hear what you’re saying well enough, but you blow so hot and cold from one moment to the next…”

“Do you  _ blame _ me?” Nori snaps and he gives her a startled look, reminding her that this is not the Dwalin who hurt her. “I know your  _ type _ , Guard. The honourable warrior in service of his lord or  _ king _ , you would promise a lover the world, but when it  _ matters _ your  _ master _ will always come first.”

“That may be for some, lass,” Dwalin says as he takes a step back, “but not me.”

“You’ll forgive me for not being willing to risk it again,” she sneers. “Lets go to your king and get this over with.” 

“Maybe that would be best,” Dwalin agrees, stalking ahead of her. 

She can tell she has insulted his pride. Dwalin rarely loses his temper with others, unlike his cousin, all too aware that his size and strength makes him intimidating enough without raising his voice. Then there is the fact that he is most often found guarding Thorin, Dís or the boys and that is something that requires a clear and level head. For her to get such a rise out of him when he barely knows her in this life means that she has touched some deep nerve, and that is likely a nerve that has something to do with Thráin. She knows how petty it is to touch that deep sense of failure and poke at it, especially when this is  _ not _ the Dwalin who wronged her in the future, but that petty part of her feels satisfied with it all the same. 

She really should try not to spend any time near him for the foreseeable future, it will not reflect well on either of them, and there is plenty in her life to reflect poorly upon her.

Dwalin takes her to Thorin’s private office, a room that Nori is very familiar with given how much time she once spent in it before falling into her own past. It is as richly furnished as she remembers, with a large fire that burns even in the summer. Across from the door is a solid desk of dark wood, one side of which is piled high with books, papers and scrolls. Thorin sits behind it, his chin resting on the back of his interlocked fingers as he watches her enter.

“You shouldn’t sit with your back to the window like that,” Nori remarks simply, noting the twitch in Thorin’s cheek which has always been a sign that he is keeping a tight control of his volatile temper. “Makes you an easy target for an assassin. Keep your back to a wall.” Icy eyes look her over slowly and she shrugs.

“This is her?” Thorin asks Dwalin and Nori narrows her eyes.

“Aye, this is Nori,” the large guard says.

“You can go,” Thorin dismisses him.

“With everything I’ve heard,” Nori cuts in, “I think I would rather he stay.”

“You distrust me?” Thorin’s tone is deceptively mild.

“I just don’t want to be in a position where I’m accused of anything I didn’t do,” Nori smiles sharply, “and don’t try and say you haven’t considered it. In my experience, wealthy families will do everything in their power to prevent their children from apprenticing in my trade. And since they have most of the money, they have most of the power.”

“You have a sharp mind,” Thorin observes softly, as though surprised. 

“You don’t last long in this trade if you don’t know how to use your brain,” Nori responds. “Fortunately, the lad isn’t as stupid as he likes to pretend. As long as he gets the right training, he’ll do very well at his trade.”

“His mother tells me that you intend to train him to spy and kill for his brother,” Thorin says softly.

“Every good king should have a spy and assassin who is unfailingly loyal to him,” Nori sits in one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. Thorin raises an eyebrow at her and she smirks at him. “As I understand it, your grandfather was the one to abolish the practice as he sunk into the depths of his lust for gold.”

“I heard something similar,” Dwalin mutters, his support almost begrudging. “And I’ve been telling you for years that you need someone more versed at the less honourable side of things to watch your back. I can’t always be around, and I’ve told you about that window too.”

“You do not speak as I would expect one of your kind to,” Thorin observes, ignoring Dwalin. 

“I know how to blend in,” Nori shrugs, “which includes changing my manner of speech to fit where I am. It isn’t something that the lad can learn here.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’ll be taking him out of the mountains with me when I leave in two weeks,” Nori states, glancing at her fingernails. “He needs to learn to be someone else, and too many people know him and are familiar with him here.”

“He’s too young,” Thorin shakes his head.

“It sounds like you think I’m asking permission,” Nori snorts. “I’m not. People in my line of work, and Kíli’s, don’t ask. We do.” Thorin’s face takes on an expression that Nori is too familiar with and she suspects that if Dwalin were not present he would have already reached for whatever blade he always has tucked away. “Look, if I leave town and don’t take him with me, he won’t be training. If he isn’t training he isn’t safe from the Guild’s retribution when he messes up again. And he  _ will _ mess up again before I get back, we all do in the first six months.”

“Odd that you mentioned nothing of this to my sister,” Thorin remarks.

“Would you?” Nori arches an eyebrow. “His best chance is to learn somewhere that isn’t here.”

“You will take Dwalin,” Thorin orders after a moment in which he is obviously getting his temper under control.

“I won’t,” Nori shakes her head. “Away means away, no guards. I can take care of him myself, don’t need help. He isn’t exactly hard to miss, is he?” She uses her thumb to point over her shoulder at the large guard.

“That’s the point,” Thorin replies dryly. 

“And it’s the opposite of what the boy needs to learn to be,” Nori points out. “Not to mention your guard’s morals. They’re inconvenient.”

Dwalin huffs behind her.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard them called  _ that _ ,” he mutters. Thorin gives him a frustrated glare. “Regardless, the lass has a point, I would only be in their way and if her blades are as sharp as her tongue she will have no need for me. Let her take the lad. It will do him some good.”

“My sister would disagree with you,” Thorin leans back and Nori watches curiously. 

She has seen Dwalin standing against Thorin’s orders before when he believes that his king is being particularly pig headed, though it happens rarely and never in front of strangers. Which Nori now is. And yet… and yet there is something about her that seems to have drawn Dwalin to her far more rapidly than it had in her past. He does not know her, she knows that much, but their evening in the bar together seems to have made far more of an impression on him than she had realised.

“Your sister would have been happy to let the boy run around the city picking pockets until it got him killed,” Dwalin snarls, “and then she would have blamed me and mine for not stopping him rather than let him be trained as he needs to be. Even three days of it has seen him more settled than he has been in years. That boy will never grow up and accept his place in life if you keep trying to keep him from everything that he’s meant to be.”

“That was some speech, Guard,” Nori comments with an arched brow and a half smile.

“You had your chance,” he tells her curtly and she nods.

“Very well,” Thorin sighs. “Take him, I will deal with my sister.” He waves his hand, then looks at her sharply. “Know, Thief, that if anything happens to that boy under your care there will be no place in this world that you could hide where I could not track you down. I will utilise every resource I have, I will face Durin’s Bane if I have to in order to take vengeance for the loss of that boy.”

“If he falls, Thorin,” Nori replies, planting her hands on the desk so that she can lean close, “I will have already fallen trying to protect him.”

“It would be best if that were the case,” Thorin hisses. “Take her.” He waves a hand at Dwalin, although the expression on the king’s face tells Nori that he will be having words with his cousin later. She almost wishes that she could see it, but she has other things to do and so she follows Dwalin without a word until they are further from Thorin’s office.

“Thank you for speaking for the lad,” Nori says gently, though she knows that the words will be unwelcome.

“I didn’t do it for you,” Dwalin huffs.

“I know,” she shrugs, “but it’s not like Thorin will tell anyone that you said it.” He gives her a startled glance. “It’s my job to know things, Guard,” she points out. “Teaching the lad to be a thief isn’t the only skill I have, and it won’t be the most important either.”

“He has a name,” Dwalin mutters, “you haven’t used it more than once since you got here. Always calling him the lad or the boy.”

“That’s because out there he isn’t Kíli, he can’t afford to be,” Nori explains. “Kíli is a prince; foolish, headstrong, spoiled, his only care is that his Ma and Uncle won’t let him become what he’s meant to be. It’s the perfect personality to hide behind. Out there he can’t afford that. Out there he has to be someone else, with a different name and a different personality. He isn’t my first apprentice, but he’s the first one I’ve had with so much raw talent and potential. One day he might even be better than me, but only if he starts on the right track. Which means that he needs to learn to keep work separate from home, and I need to get accustomed to calling him by his work name and not his public name. So it’s best that I don’t use it at all. Not for the moment.”

Dwalin nods in thoughtful silence.

“It’s also best that I avoid complications,” she adds. “For his sake more than anything. I promised his Ma I would be discrete, this is the best way I know how.”

Dwalin nods and they part ways in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't sleep, and I've got some extra chapters typed so I figured I'd give you an extra one this week. Enjoy


	22. You Haven't Got A Clue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dwalins’s my mother’s guard,” Nori sets her jaw as she hears Kíli answer.

Nori does not tell Kíli that Thorin has agreed to allow him to leave with her when she goes to the Shire straight away. Instead she decides to give Thorin a few days to speak with his sister before telling the lad, no doubt Dís will have objections and Nori wants Thorin to deal with them before Kíli has to hear them. Briar’s business with Balin seems to have come to an end for the moment, after going through her documents over the course of her meeting with him and comparing them to those of the merchants in question Balin has asked the hobbit to give him a week before they meet again. This time it seems that he means it and Nori spends her mornings with Kíli and her afternoons with Briar for the two days following her meeting with Thorin.

On the third day, however, Nori takes Briar with her when she goes to meet her young apprentice, even though part of her insists she would still be better off keeping them apart. She is going to continue teaching Kíli to watch everything around him, it is a skill that will serve him well no matter what part of their trade he comes to specialise in, but she has also decided that it is time to teach him to fight the way that she does and the way that she is teaching Briar to. Cadan will need a fighting style that fits the streets a little more, and a sword which needs to be wielded with both hands is not a good fit. Street fighters use short swords, hand axes and knives. Some use long swords and larger axes, but for the most part they prefer small weapons. Small weapons are easier to hide. Nori has at least fifteen knives of varying size and style on her at any given time. When she is travelling she often carries even more, as well as a long mace. When it is just her, or her and one or two others, it is often easier to keep her head down and out of sight than to risk a fight, but it is nice to have the reassurance of the mace.

She cannot remember why she chose not to take it on that last job with Karn, which probably means it either was not important or she wanted to move relatively unnoticed. Men are accustomed to seeing dwarves with swords and axes, they tend to comment on other weapons as though they know anything about her people at all. 

“You’re quiet,” Briar comments as they wait for Kíli.

“Plotting,” Nori shrugs.

“Thinking about whatever put you in such a snit the other day?” The hobbit asks.

“I don’t have ‘snits’,” Nori sniffs and Briar snorts. “And Dwalin isn’t worth  _ getting _ into a snit over anyway.” She recognises her mistake as soon as the words are out of her mouth, but it is too late to take it back. So far she has managed to keep her feelings about Dwalin from Dori, having not seen much of Ori for her younger brother to form any suspicions, and Kíli, but apparently Briar has a way of slipping under her usual defences.

“Who’s  _ Dwalin _ ?” Briar’s face lights up curiously.

“He’s my mother’s guard,” Nori sets her jaw as she hears Kíli answer from behind her. “Why do you want to know?” He looks curiously at Briar before bowing to her, then he looks over at Nori and she curses that he is such a quick learner. “Are  _ you _ why he’s been beating the shit out of everyone he can get his hands on the last few days?” He grins. “Even my  _ uncle _ is hiding and he’s one of the few dwarves who can best Dwalin in a fight half the time.”

“A rare moment of good sense on his part,” Nori observes with an arched eyebrow.

“He isn’t stupid,” Kíli objects, “he’s just stubborn.”

“Sometimes, lad,” Nori sighs, “stubborness is just another form of stupidity.” She starts to walk. “Come along you two, Briar needs someone new to beat up and you need to learn to brawl, Cadan.” Kíli blinks, as though caught off guard by the name.

She glances over her shoulder to make sure that the two are following only to feel her eyebrows shoot up when she sees the lad offer Briar his arm. It is not that her people do  _ not _ walk arm in arm, it is more that it is something normally only seen in courting pairs. It is an odd sight, Briar is at least a head and shoulders shorter than Kíli and yet as they walk together the people moving around them barely spare the pair a second glance. Kíli’s brown leather trousers and olive green tunic are worn enough that they do not look at all out of place, even with the tunic open enough at the neck to display the dark hair that Nori knows coats the lad’s chest. There is the lightest flush on Briar’s cheeks as they walk together, something else which lends to the idea that they are a young couple. It is not the  _ worst _ disguise, in fact it is one that Nori has employed herself on occasion in other dwarf settlements, but something about it worries her and it takes a moment for her to realise that it is the fact that this is still a  _ natural _ seeming sight for all the disparity between the pair of them.

It reminds her that there is still much about hobbits that she does not know, and that she will need to remedy that as well as give Briar a little more information about dwarves. Including, it would seem, the status and age of the young prince who is currently quietly recounting some story or piece of history that has Briar smiling widely.

Still, it is neither the time nor the place, and given the way that passing dwarves either smile fondly or ignore the pair Nori decides to leave it be. Instead she leads the pair to an old warehouse near the river which runs through the town from deep inside the mountains. The building, though appearing in poor repair, belongs to the Thieves Guild and the inside has been extensively renovated inside for training purposes into multiple rooms with training rings, dummies and other equipment. Nori has hired a simple training ring today, the soft sand perfect for allowing Briar and Kíli to toss one another around, although it is mostly for Briar’s benefit. 

The hobbit has not forgotten her lessons since her arrival, although Nori had not expected her to, and the three of them spend the following weeks alternating between training together and Nori teaching Kíli to observe the activity around him when the hobbit has to go and meet with Balin. It is actually surprisingly good fun, even the mornings where Kíli brings his brother with him ends up being enjoyable. With what she knows about how Fíli died, Nori thinks that he could do with learning some of the techniques that she is teaching as well, so she allows him to join them three mornings a week and the utterly delicious expression of helpless frustration that it puts on Dwalin’s face the few times he tracks her down is simply icing on the cake.

Not to mention how funny it is to see Briar use what she knows, and her mule like kick, to wipe the cocky smirk off Fíli’s lips a few times. Kíli too. In fact, seeing the diminutive hobbit lass throw the pair of princes around as she uses what Nori has taught her makes the thief wonder if, just maybe, she is giving the future Briar who might never exist some small amount of payback for all the times that the two lads made her the butt of their joke. Mahal knows the pair of them deserved it then. Yet, somehow, that Briar had still managed to fall in love with at least one of them, and watching  _ this _ Briar Nori suspects she knows which one it was.

She takes a morning while Briar is finalising the new trade details with Balin to advise Kíli that he will be coming with them to the Shire. Fíli is there as well and Nori has taken the morning to teach the two of them a few knife tricks to play with. Fíli, who has a collection of knives already that Nori is truly envious of, is practicing on one side of the room when she tells his younger brother that they will be leaving town in four days. Unsurprisingly, Kíli is excited by this development and Fíli is envious. At first Nori worries that it will be a problem, but then Fíli turns to her.

“You will have him back by my birthday, won’t you?” He asks seriously.

“Why would I do that?” She replies. “I’m his sponsor, not his babysitter.”

“I come of age on my next birthday,” Fíli points out. “I’d like my brother to be there to celebrate with me.”

“It’s easy to lose track of time on the road, lad,” Nori tells him. Kíli had turned seventy-seven while they had been in Rivendell, which had led to something of a party that the elves had found more than a little disruptive. She does not think anyone had bothered to tell Briar or Elrond what it had been about, but then it had been none of their business either. “Winter is a miserable time for travel, too,” she adds once she has thought through it all. She sees his face fall. “I’m not making any promises,” she grumbles. “I know how little those are worth. Doesn’t mean I won’t try.”

“Thank you,” he beams and she huffs.

“Mahal fucking wept,” she grumbles. “You two are going to turn me soft. Quit grinning at me like that, you daft bugger, or I’ll change my mind, see if I don’t.” No sense in telling them that a different version of them managed to worm their way into her heart too many years ago for her to be able to effectively tell either of them ‘no’ now. 

“I just wish I was coming with you,” he tells his brother as he steps away from her. “You’ll have to tell me  _ everything _ .”

Kíli flushes.

“Maybe not everything,” he mumbles and Nori narrows her eyes, wondering what he is hoping to get up to once he is out from under the watchful eyes of his mother, uncle and Dwalin. Something that would probably have been right up her street before all of this mess, no doubt.

“You’re going out there to learn, lad, not play games with the local lasses, or lads if that’s what lights your forge.” She smirks at him. “Although I’m sure I can arrange something if that side of your education is lacking as well.” He blushes harder and she cackles as his brother chuckles.

“That is  _ well _ in hand,” Fíli snorts.

“Not sure I need to know that,” Nori shrugs the statement off with a grin. “Go on, boys, get home with you before Dwalin or your Ma burst something. You can have the next few days with your family, lad,” she adds to Kíli, “it’ll be a while until you see them again. Supplies are provided, just make sure you bring weapons and clothes with you. And some coin for after we part ways with Briar. Meet me at my brother’s place at dawn in four days. Do  _ not  _ make me come and get you. It will not end well.”

“Are you insane?” Kíli exclaims. “I get to see the world! Ma and Thorin will have to tie me to the bed to stop me from being on time.”

“Don’t give them ideas,” Fíli mutters. “Ma’s still looking for ways around letting you go.”

“But that wouldn't be fair,” the younger complains.

“Life isn’t fair,” Nori points out, “but in this case it would be asking to get you in trouble or killed, and your uncle knows it. Go home, get packed. And don’t forget your bow. Hunting is always easier with a skilled archer around.”

Nori knows how self conscious Kíli is about his skill with a bow. It is not a popular weapon with their people even though hunters will always be revered for their skill and ability to bring in fresh meat and game. So she allows herself a private smirk of satisfaction when he beams at her once more, and when Fíli nods in his own appreciation she returns it with a careful acknowledgement. It warms her heart to see how readily Fíli has accepted his younger brother’s path. She only hopes that it can stay that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a bad day. Crisis schooling is a nightmare to keep up with. On the plus side, crochet Fili is waiting for his clothes. Which is fun. But it's about all I can accomplish while I'm keeping an eye on the children as they study to make sure they actually do their schoolwork and I answer their questions/help them. So yeah. I hit the end of my rope with it all this morning. And I'm tired. I've been staying up until silly am to get studying done. All that means is that I'm in need of a little love right now of some sort. Comments are love.


	23. Why Do I Have Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “As long as I can blame you when Ma finds out,” Kíli hedges.

In the end Kíli is not the one who has them running late the morning of their departure from Thorin’s Halls. Dori is the one who holds them up as he helps to wrestle Briar’s curls into three braids, one on each side of her head and one down the centre, which all come together into one at the back. It would be considered a simple style among Nori’s people, but Briar’s curls are a little bit more difficult to work with even for the hobbit who has done so for many years. Kíli watches in fascination, something which Nori knows that Dís would clip him about the ears for, fingers scratching idly at the slightly thicker beard growth which is evidence of the tea being put to use.

“Leave it be,” she tells him as she bats his hand away, “come and help me load up the ponies.”

“It itches,” Kíli complains as he trudges after her.

“That’s what you get for shaving, lad, you know that,” Nori replies, chucking a bag at him. He dodges to one side, hand shooting out the catch the bag by the straps. “Good reflexes,” she comments, “ever thought about catching knives?”

“Ma would kill me,” Kíli tells her.

“All the more reason to practice it then,” Nori chuckles. “You never know when you might need to catch something like that. It’s not an easy trick to master, mind.”

“Can you do it?” He slings the bag over his shoulder and bends to pick up another one before following Nori out of the building and into the street where the ponies have been tied to wait for them.

“Of course,” she smirks, “you think I’d teach you something I  _ can’t  _ do?”

“As long as I can blame you when Ma finds out,” Kíli hedges.

“Lad, if your mother finds out before you’re of age it had better be because you caught a blade to save your life or your brother’s, otherwise you’re on your own,” Nori informs him blithely. “You aren’t learning this to show off. You’re learning it so that you can use these skills to protect your family.”

“I don’t see how,” Kíli admits as he helps her get everything strapped down.

“Once your uncle is gone, your brother will be the one in power, that brings enemies with it,” Nori explains, being deliberately vague in view of the others walking through the street, although there are not so many as there would have been half an hour before. “Someone wants him dead? You know how an assassin might get in to achieve that and put things in place to prevent it. You can use the skills of a spy to watch others, thieving comes into that too because you can use it to get the evidence that you need. There is a lot to be said for protecting the ones you love from the shadows. Others underestimate those that they think are stupid or selfish, or even just frivilous like you pretend to be. They let their guard down and let things slip that they wouldn’t normally. Being thought foolish is one of the best ways to hide what you really are so that you can protect the people you love.”

“How did you know I was pretending?”   
  


“It’s my job to know these things,” Nori grips his shoulder. “I may not like the way your ma and uncle went about things concerning your trade, but I don’t want any harm to come to them either. I know I sound like I think otherwise, but I have always been, and will always be, loyal to your line.” He nods. “Now get that pony loaded before Dori tries to come up with another method of holding us up this morning. We’ve loitered long enough waiting for Balin to get his shit together as it is. Time to get Briar home and start your training properly.”

She turns to go back inside.

“Nori?” He stops her and she looks back, surprised to see uncertainty on his face. “We will be back for Fíli’s coming of age, won’t we?”

“If you’ve learnt enough,” Nori replies, even though she has silently promised herself that they will make it back. She remembers what happened at Fíli’s coming of age and it is something she thinks it would be worth changing. Kíli looks crestfallen. “Call it motivation,” she tells him.

“Do you think I’m not trying hard enough?” He asks.

“I think we’ve only just started and you’re about to spend your first two seasons away from your family,” Nori responds. “It isn’t an easy thing, lad, for any of us. But until you’ve learnt what you need to, we won’t be coming back, and we won’t stay permanently even then. It’s better that way.” There is something almost sad about the way she says it, with Kíli she learnt long before she fell into the past that as bad as he is at hiding his own feelings, Kíli is good at knowing when he is being lied to. Much as she is really.

“You don’t believe that,” he says, proving that it is not only the Kíli that she came to know who reads her more easily than he should.

“I did once,” Nori sighs. “Then I met someone and he got under my skin. You can build walls around your mind and heart, lad, but there’s always someone who manages to break through. Anyway,” she turns, “enough of this before we decide to find a tavern and weep into our ale. We’ve got places to be if you want to be back before your brother’s party.”

She does not wait for a reply from him this time, just walks back into the house shouting for her brother to release the hobbit. 

“Thank you,” Briar hisses as she appears at the bottom of the stairs.

“No charge,” Nori grins. “This time.”

Briar shakes her head, then hurries out to the ponies as Dori walks down the stairs behind her. His manner of walking is, as always, somewhat stately.

“Well,” he says, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, “I must say that this particular friend of yours has been a joy to have stay. I would not object to hosting her again should she feel the desire to visit.”

“I’m sure she was pleased to hear that,” Nori replies noncommittally.

“You will be careful out there,” Dori moves on quickly enough once Briar is out of his sight, turning his need to fuss onto its second most regular recipient. “I hate to think of what it would do to Ori if you were to vanish into the world never to be seen or heard from again.”

“I’ll do my best,” Nori shrugs, “but you know it isn’t exactly safe out there for anyone, never mind for those of us who do the kind of work I do.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Dori mutters after a moment.

“Don’t start that again, fusspot,” she hisses, although there is a fond note underneath it. “Can’t we put that old fight behind us? I am what I am. Mahal made me this for a reason and I think it was to teach that lad out there how to be the best at what we are. Who am I to argue with our Maker? Who are you?” Dori’s face takes on a faintly stricken expression. “I’ll be back in time for his brother’s birthday. I won’t expect a warm welcome, but it would be nice.”

“As long as you do not bring trouble to my door, you are always welcome, you know that,” Dori tells her, then taps his head against hers gently. “Be safe, my sister.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Nori smirks as she returns the gesture. “I’ll see you at winter’s end.”

They leave town unchallenged, although Nori can tell that Kíli is nervous about the possibility of being stopped by the guards there. The gate guards, while familiar with him from his regular hunting trips, do not seem to pay him any attention. Kíli usually has two or three guards with him, all of whom are experienced hunters themselves, as well as his brother, a few friends, and Dwalin. Seeing Fíli hunt with his throwing axes and knives rather than a bow has always been a fascinating sight. She is almost disappointed that Briar did not get to see it this time. There will be other opportunities, however, and it is better that she not get  _ too _ familiar with the line of Durin for the moment, even though it is unavoidable with Kíli by now.

Their journey back to the Shire passes in much the same manner as the trip to Ered Luin. Nori drills Briar and Kíli both in her preferred hand to hand style of fighting, while also beginning to teach Kíli to catch knives flung in his direction. She starts with stones and she notes that Briar seems to take pleasure in helping with that particular task, although more because it seems to be in the nature of a game rather than out of any maliciousness. Hobbits, it seems, pride themselves on their aim and although Kíli occasionally gets hit by the well aimed stones and weighted sticks he improves as quickly and by the time they reach the Shire he has progressed to catching blunted knives.

“Is there anyone waiting for you in the Shire?” Kíli asks Briar one evening as they sit around the fire eating. 

The young prince had managed to fell a doe earlier in the afternoon and the fresh meat is much appreciated by the three of them. Nori hides a wince behind taking a large bite of her venison, remembering a conversation in the future which started this way and ended with Briar hurting and angrily storming from the camp one evening not long before they crossed the Misty Mountains. Unlike the future Briar, however, this one shrugs rather than hunching defensively.

“Only my mother,” she replies simply, “my father passed a few years ago and I don’t have any siblings.”

“I would have thought the hobbit lads would be lining the streets to court a pretty lass like you,” Kíli comments and Nori gives him a glare.

“They’re lining the streets to court my parents’ money,” Briar replies, “but me?” Her face falls. “I was an oddity before I decided to go on a small adventure outside the Shire. It’s…” she huffs. “It’s unusual for a couple to have only one child. My father was one of five, my mother was one of twelve. It was their choice to only have me, but you know what gossips are like; once they’ve decided on something that’s the end of the matter regardless of the truth of things. I travel, I’m educated, I’m a lone child, I stand to inherit a significant amount of money, a large amount of land and some lucrative trade contracts. They want the money. They don’t want me.”

“Then they’re blind fools,” Kíli declares.

“I’ll live without it,” Briar replies lightly. “I have enough to worry about learning everything I need to know about my inheritance.”

“Not to mention how off putting your current suitor is,” Nori adds. Kíli gapes at her. “He is. Borden Proudfoot,” she shudders dramatically. “If he’s any indication of the type of lad you’re most likely to be courted by, lass, you’d be better off coming to Ered Luin with me for a bit longer when you’re ready to settle down. I’m sure we could find  _ someone _ who would suit you.”

Kíli takes on a faintly betrayed expression and Nori wonders how serious this fancy he has taken to the hobbit is becoming. Briar certainly has not done anything to encourage it, although she still blushes when Kíli returns from washing in any stream or pond that they have passed without his tunic on. Something he absolutely does on purpose, but Nori knows him well enough from her past to know that it is a gentle tease.

Briar laughs. “I might take you up on that, you know,” she chuckles. “It amazes me that my mother and father met at all. They were both such different people. I think my father might have been the only hobbit ever grown who could see past my mother’s wild and adventurous nature to love her.”

“I can think of at least one in Ered Luin who would appreciate what you have to offer,” Kíli informs the hobbit in a low voice. Nori kicks him.

“You’re sixty-three,” she reminds him, “and you’re my apprentice as well, seven years is a long time.”

“Seven years until what?” Briar asks curiously, although Nori can see that she is grateful for the change in topic.

“Until he comes of age,” Nori replies as Kíli flushes and mumbles about it being closer to six years. Briar chokes on a mouthful of meat.

“You come of age at  _ seventy _ ?” She squeaks.

“When do hobbits come of age?” Kíli asks in reply.

“Thirty-three,” Briar mutters. “I’ve been of age for a little over three years now.”

“How long do hobbits live?” Kíli tilts his head, although Nori can see him already beginning to assess what he is learning. For a hobbit to come of age so young they must live less time than dwarves do.

“As long as we need to,” Briar’s answer is far more evasive than Nori had expected. “Usually it’s up to about a hundred years baring injury or illness, but sometimes… there are legends that say that sometimes things happen and a hobbit, or even dozens of us at one point, needs to live longer. My grandfather was one hundred and thirty. My great, great, great, grandfather was two hundred and fifty eight. All of us claim to have ancestors among those who wandered before we found the Shire who were between one and two hundred when they settled and started having children. According to the legends anyway. I think it’s probably a load of nonsense.”

“A hundred years,” Nori says softly. 

  
That would hardly be any time at all, but then she looks at Kíli, and sees the contemplative look on his face, and she realises that such a revelation may not have been as off putting to  _ him _ as it would be to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, here he is: [Fili](https://www.deviantart.com/artemis-desari/art/Crochet-Fili-The-Hobbit-869685812)
> 
> I'm working off a different head canon for this one. One of the things that I struggle with a bit when pairing a hobbit with one of the younger dwarves is the huge difference in lifespan. So I have a different thing I'm playing with. one of these days I'll set a schedule for updates and stick to it. I'm not actually good at that. I tend to prefer just posting as I go but I need the buffer to allow for days when the kids won't let me write. Got one of those now, though, so I'll post today and if I get my next Jewel of Durin chapter written quickly enough I'll post a second chapter this week as well. We'll see.


	24. He Had It Coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori slips back to the inn. From here Kíli is on his own.

They leave Briar at the borders of the Shire, although Kíli objects when he finds out that Briar will be travelling alone for several days. The Shire is a far larger place than Nori knows many dwarves realise, but it is also safer than most places as well, perhaps baring elvish settlements, and even though there are Borden Proudfoots in the place, the vast majority of the hobbits would not know the first thing about countering any of the techniques that Nori has taught the hobbit. 

“We’ll be back through around Yule time,” Nori says as they part ways, “so we’ll drop in for a few days on our way back for his brother’s birthday,” she gestures to Kíli who is waiting slightly awkwardly off to one side. “We’ll need to thaw out a bit anyway. Winter travel is miserable,” she huffs, but she would never deprive Kíli of the chance to be with Fíli on the day that his older brother and closest friend comes of age. The closeness of the pair of them is something that Nori has always admired and she does not want to come into the middle of it either. “Any trouble with the Proudfoot lad, you do what I taught you and we’ll handle him on the way through.”

“I’ll be alright,” Briar promises. “You don’t need to worry about dealing with Borden Proudfoot, I can handle it.”

Nori thinks about the future Briar that she knew who was so twitchy around the Company for so long and wonders once more how much of a role the hobbit in question had to play in that.

“You’re practically my little sister at this point,” Nori replies. “I don’t take to people, lass, not like I have to you, and no one messes with my family. So if he’s still bothering you when we come back through, let me know and I’ll put a permanent stop to it.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Briar insists, “but thank you.”

Impulsively the hobbit embraces Nori, careful of the various knives that she knows the dwarf has hidden away, and the thief returns it happily. As odd as the sentiment may seem, it is good to have someone that she can think of as family who is not embarrassed or ashamed of what she is.

“See you in a few months,” she mutters to the hobbit and departs with Kíli leading the pony.

The lad gives Briar a wink and a jaunty smile, then follows obediently as they make their way to the nearest town of Men to the eastern side of the Shire. It is something that Nori knows cannot last. Kíli is out in the world for the first time and he is without the calming presence of his mother, uncle or Dwalin. Even having Fíli along may have calmed some of Kíli’s impulsiveness, although Nori knows full well that the pair of them feed off each other as much as they keep each other from going too far. With only Nori around, Kíli decides to push and while any other guardian or family member might have tried to rein him in, she decides to just let him have at it. Much like any other thief, Kíli needs to learn from experience and that is the purpose of the first town.

Nori watches him, of course, because she would not simply hand him to the wolves and let him get himself killed or maimed for the sake of learning. The first night he does not do much more than drink a few more ales than he should, though he watches the girl as though sizing her up much as Nori would advise him to do in any situation. The thief simply raises her tankard and lets him carry on. The boy can hold his ale, she will give him that, but she still has to help him to bed much later on when the taproom closes. The following day they meander around the small market square, Nori lifts a few purses and encourages Kíli to do the same. This is the time for the lad to learn to be the thief, to wander and blend in among others who do not know him, but he also needs to learn where the limits are.

Perhaps the most amusing moment is when he clumsily flirts with the barmaid, who must have seen all manner of things in even the few years that she has been working here. She is obviously young by the standards of Men, Nori has travelled and stayed in enough Mannish towns to know how they grow and age, the girl is probably just in her early twenties and although she is not married yet given she is working in a tavern still she is of marriageable age. The owner watches her, although mostly it seems that he is watching to make sure that the girl does not get too distracted rather than to ensure that the patrons do not get overly handsy. Very few of them do and the one who does withdraws with a yelp. Nori’s sharp eyes catch a flash of steel as the maid tucks a small knife back into her belt, but even the wary girl who has seen it all smiles and blushes as Kíli lays on the charm. He flirts well when he is relaxed, Kíli tends to fall apart when he is nervous or embarrassed, which is something that they will need to break him of. As it is, Kíli currently has nothing to prove, to himself or anyone else, and he is perfectly happy making slightly flirtatious comments as he winks and grins his way through his ale. 

“Just make sure you’re back in time for breakfast,” Nori shrugs when Kíli gets up to follow the girl at the end of her shift. He throws her a surprised look, obviously not expecting her to be so nonchalant about whatever he chooses to do with his time. “I’m not your father,” she points out, having taken on the use of male pronouns outside of the mountains once more. “Do what you like for the night, but be back for breakfast, it comes out of  _ your _ pocket if you aren’t here when I’m ready to start.” He nods and follows the barmaid. 

Nori waits a few minutes, then follows quietly, mostly so that she knows where to go in the morning when Kíli fails to turn up. The girl, Nori is amused to note, is only a couple of inches taller than Kíli, who is tall for a dwarf anyway, and she has long hair of a similar shade to Briar’s, although she is far more slender than the hobbit in a way that speaks of a hard life. The two meander for a while, exchanging the odd kiss in dark corners until they reach a small house some distance from the inn.

“You’ll have to be quiet,” the girl whispers. “My father sleeps heavily enough but you can’t be caught. He hasn’t been right since Ma passed.”

Nori slips back to the inn. From here Kíli is on his own.

To her surprise he stumbles in several hours later, waking her from sleep as he enters the room that they share. No thief is a particularly heavy sleeper after the first few years, it pays to be aware of everything that happens around them in even a safe place, so she wakes quickly and has a knife in her hand before she has even realised that it is Kíli who has entered. 

“Got caught did you?” She asks as her dark sight takes in the split lip and signs of a bruise near his temple. The Man must have used something more than his fists. 

“Her father,” Kíli mumbles. Nori hums. “You’re not angry?” He asks.

“I’m not your father,” she reminds him, “nor your mother for that matter. Better you get it out of your system before we get back to Ered Luin. This isn’t my first time, probably won’t be the last.”

“Do we have to leave town?”

“Not yet,” Nori shakes her head. “Give it a day to see what comes of it. No point running straight off, just makes them wonder what we did.” She yawns. “Go to bed,” she orders. “We’ll worry about it in the morning.”

As it is, it is not the girl’s father who has them run from town. Nori begins to spend time over the following couple of days helping Kíli to construct the Cadan’s identity, from his laugh to his walk, to the way that he holds his knives when he fights. The identity of Cadan the thief and spy is as important as that of the prince Kíli was born as, and Nori wants him to  _ live _ as that lad before they decide to turn back towards Ered Luin because then he will need to learn to flip between the two personalities. He cannot be Cadan inside his uncle’s home and he cannot be Kíli in the streets unless he is with his family. It is a bumpy process, Kíli is inclined towards a far more elaborate or tragic personality than is really necessary. Cadan needs to be someone that no one would really notice or pay attention to. Kíli needs to be the opposite. 

The latter is not too much of a problem. Fíli may be the heir, but Kíli is friendly, approachable and known to be keen to have as much fun as possible. He may go on hunting trips with a few regular guards, but he also has his own group who join him and his brother fairly regularly and Nori knows from experience that those trips are as much a party as they are a hunt.

As for the former, Cadan does not need to be a bitter and brooding loner as Kíli aims for to start. He simply needs to be approachable and forgettable and that is someone incredibly difficult to create. His focus on trying to become that person is very likely what leads to the mistake that Nori has been waiting for. Kíli gets caught picking a pocket.

It had to happen eventually, and Nori wanted it to happen in a place where the younger dwarf is not known. She also wanted it to happen in a place where she is not going to encounter too many problems while breaking him out. In Ered Luin her hands are tied slightly. The Guild discourages their people from helping others to get out of the grasp of the guard. It is not forbidden, and they would never be sanctioned for doing it, but such attempts can upset the delicate balance between guild and guard. Besides, the first dozen or so times there is usually a fine and a sound beating or a few days locked in a large cell with other criminals and then the thief in question can be on their way. If they do not get killed in a brawl, of course. After that, however, the punishments become harder. As far as Nori is concerned if you get caught that many times you deserve whatever is coming to you. What Kíli does not need this early on is being caught  _ and  _ recognised at the same time. It will happen eventually, of course, even Nori has been taken in a few times, although some of those were for her own purposes, but Kíli and his brother have enough friends among the guard that recognition will be unavoidable. Better that he experience this first humiliation away from home.

This town happens to be one of those which has small individual cells for prisoners, which can be both a blessing and a curse. Two days in one can be fairly relaxing, Nori has used them as free accommodation once or twice simply because she has not been able to lift enough coin to pay for other lodgings. Two  _ weeks _ in one, however, can be enough to drive her stir crazy. Kíli will struggle with such isolation massively, he is a far more sociable creature than she, and she knows that people are often locked in such cells for far longer than a couple of weeks. Besides, she saw the future him in the Mirkwood cells. He did not take the relative isolation from his family and travelling companions well. Which does not mean that she goes to spring him from his isolation immediately. Kíli will learn nothing if she breaks him out straight away.

“I thought you were going to leave me,” he says when she appears at the door to his cell just before dawn. Behind her the guard snores softly.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Nori scoffs, holding up the ring of keys that she had lifted on her pay past.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve messed up since I got here,” Kíli replies.

“No more than any of us did,” Nori shrugs as she finds the right key. “At least you didn’t get yourself killed.”

“Does that happen?” He asks in alarm.

“More often than you would think,” Nori mutters as they slip past the desk to collect those belongings of Kíli’s that were taken from him. “Now, this is the time for us to leave town.” She smirks, picking up a couple of extra daggers and a coin purse or two which have obviously been put aside while the owners are located.

She leads him quietly from the building where their pony and belongings are waiting outside. The town gates do not close at night, although they are watched closely, the road is a busy one and merchants and traders are known to push until an hour or two after dark in order to reach the warm taprooms and comfortable beds rather than spending another cold and uncomfortable night on the road. They are also known to leave as the sun rises and neither of the dwarves are challenged as they make their way quietly through the gate. By the time that the unconscious guard is discovered by his fellows they will be forgotten among the other early departures. 

“You needed to get it out your system,” Nori tells Kíli as they walk. He looks at her. “Every young dwarf wants to act out, get in a few fights, get laid and what have you when they’re out of sight of their family. Not saying they don’t do it in sight of their family too,” she allows, since she was one of them, “but it’s not uncommon to see it. You done? Or do we need to find another town so that you can play a little bit more?”

“I’m done,” he says a little sullenly. 

“Don’t be like that,” she reaches to wrap her arm about his shoulders. “All things considered you were pretty tame.”

“It’s just… I didn’t…” he hesitates.

“You didn't?” Nori asks, amethyst eyes sharp.

"I didn't want to disappoint my Ma," he huffs finally, although Nori suspects that is not even close to the truth. "If she heard about any of this she'd be upset."

"You're a good lad," Nori tells him, letting him think she has accepted the lie. "That's something you can keep for Kíli. Cadan will have to be a little less aware of his mother's opinion of him."

“He doesn’t  _ have _ a mother anymore,” the lad points out softly.

There is nothing Nori can say to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh thank any listening deity that as of tomorrow it's half term!! A week without having to fight with the children to get to my computer so that I can study (and sneak in 20 minutes of writing between questions). Time is a luxury I haven't had in a while. At least, not time to be productive rather than shuttling between two children asking why they aren't paying attention to their work every few minutes. I can't leave the room. If I leave the room I come back a minute later to find them both doing the opposite of what they have been told to.


	25. The World In Our Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During one evening they break into what they assume is a long abandoned farmhouse to take shelter from a summer storm.

Summer and autumn pass quickly on the roads between towns, and equally as rapidly over the course of the days and weeks spent among new populations that Nori and Kíli immerse themselves in. Taking the name Cadan while in these towns is apparently quite freeing for Kíli, although the personality that comes with the name is somewhat more somber. Cadan is as much of a flirt as the young prince, perhaps more so in some respects, but he also seems to recognise when to ease back. She watches him charm information out of Men and Women alike with his open and engaging manners, although the general mischief that the youngest son of Dís is known for in Ered Luin seems to be absent. Nori has a lot of fun teaching him what he needs to know. He is a light fingered lad, and agile with a lighter build, which makes him ideal for quickly dipping his fingers in and out of pockets and picking locks. Especially the inferior locks in the towns of Men.

She teaches him how to get in and out of buildings quietly and quickly, and to her surprise he picks everything that she teaches him up with far more rapidity than she could ever have hoped for given what she once knew of him. The Kíli of her future would often take longer to learn something that others tried to teach him and now she suspects  _ that _ was as much of an act of rebellion against his family as his shaving had become. He flushes when she asks him about it, which is still more endearing to her than it should be, and she advises him that it is something he might want to keep as a prince. Better that the people around them do not know how bright he really is.

Surprisingly, Kíli does not argue with her about it and she wonders if he realises that his position as prince is the one which will end up being the disguise he wears for the rest of his life.

It actually proves to be good fun, helped, she suspects, by the fact that she is so inclined towards fondness for the lad due to the past with him that he has no idea she has. The more time she spends with him, the more details that he shares about his family and his childhood. Some of the stories she is already aware of, though she pretends not to be, and others are new to her even after having spent twelve years of a previous life working with Thorin. They have fun together, Kíli’s tales from his youth are matched by some of the misadventures from hers that Nori feels she can share. 

During one evening they break into what they assume is a long abandoned farmhouse to take shelter from a summer storm. The yard outside is overgrown, the barn doors closed and there is neither sound nor sight of animals in the area. Nori has passed this way several times in her lifetime, and she cannot remember seeing anyone living around the place, although she knows that she cannot entirely rely on her memory of the past. Things are different and for her it was a long time ago. Everything in the main room has a thick coating of dust on it when they enter. The air is musty with the staleness of a room that has not been opened in a long time and a hint of rot, though it could be the food that she sees on the table. The fireplace still has the remains of cold, greasy looking ashes and the cook pot hangs abandoned and covered in cobwebs. Nori sneezes as they disturb a cloud of dust. This will be a miserable place to linger for a few days if the storm does not blow over, but there is no reason that they should not clear out the room and tidy it up. In all honesty Nori is tempted to see how sound the place is and use it as a base away from Ered Luin. It makes sense to have one somewhere.

She changes her mind when she makes her way into the bedroom at the back. The door is closed and creaks on its hinges when she pushes it open. The rotting smell is stronger now, although still not as overwhelming as it could be if it were fresh, and her amethyst eyes land upon the rotted corpse upon the bed. She bows her head and steps back, closing the door behind her. She may not have ever seen the owner of this place, but she can easily guess what happened here given the abandoned appearance and the lack of disturbance. This was an old Man, or perhaps a Woman, who likely passed in their sleep or from illness with no one else in their life to miss them. Nori is not the easiest to read, but Kíli is perceptive and he quickly picks up on the fact that something is wrong. 

His face crumples when she explains what she has found to him, and she looks down to see an old and beaten fiddle in his hand. Kíli plays, she knows, as does his brother although they did not play all that often in her previous life during the run up to the quest for Erebor. At least, they did not play publicly all that often. 

“I wondered why they would leave something like this,” he says, placing it gently onto the table.

“People don’t think about luxuries like that when they’re running, lad,” Nori tells him, her tone gentle.

“Do you think they abandoned him?” Kíli whispers and Nori reminds herself that as much as the lad knows about the world he is still relatively innocent to the harsh realities of life outside of his uncle’s home. 

“No,” Nori shakes her head. “I imagine if we poke around we’ll find a grave or two belonging to his family. From the state of the place it was sudden enough, meaning he was likely old and died in his sleep, maybe sickness or a badly treated wound. Farm wounds can go sour quickly.” She knows, she has seen it happen, and that means that she knows what she will find in the barn if they go out there. She touches a hand to the fiddle. “Let’s clean up in here, storms in these parts can take a couple of days to blow over so we might as well be comfortable and we could use a hot meal as well. Soon as it clears we’ll put him in the ground the way that the Men do.”

“So, we just leave him in there and stay here for however long it takes?” Kíli asks in horror.

“We can’t be out there in this, lad,” Nori reminds him. The rain is being blown in sideways by the wind, they are near the coast and the weather can turn as rapidly here as it can in the mountains. “And I’m not going to disrespect his life by chucking his remains out there either. We leave him in there, we stay in here. Ultimately it won’t make any difference to him or us. I’ve bedded down in worse places,” the one that sticks out the most in her memory is the halls of Erebor, abandoned but for the Company and the corpses of those inhabitants who did not make it out. “You will too, one day,” she adds softly, “it’s part of the life that we lead.”

Kíli nods sadly and they spend the afternoon cleaning the main room out, making it liveable for the next couple of days until the storm blows over and the body can be buried. Before her experiences in Erebor Nori may not have bothered at all, but as much as she hates to admit it the quest may have changed her more than twelve years of sneaking through the shadows for Thorin did. Nori has lost people in the past, it is another part of her life, but the stakes in the quest were high and the cost far greater than any of them could have imagined. 

That night, for the first time since her quiet time alone after escorting Briar to Rivendell, Nori dreams of the outcome of the quest and the deaths of the lads and their uncle. She was not there, but she knows how it happened. Dwalin saw it and described it in his grief while healers worked frantically to save a king who was beyond saving. It would be better had her former lover, although not so former in this lifetime, been less clear about how the lads and Thorin had died. Nori has dreamt it before, there are always battledreams after a fight, and sometimes it is the most surprising altercation which will bring them on. A battle like the one at the foot of Erebor is  _ expected _ to trigger such dreams. Loss such as they experienced is expected to have triggered them as well. She almost expected them after finding the remains of the former occupant of the house.

She wakes with Kíli’s sharp eyes on her.

“You were screaming,” he informs her seriously.

“Happens, lad,” she tries to shrug it off as she reaches for the small hip flask that she carries, though she rarely touches it.

“It was me and Fíli you were shouting about,” he adds and she freezes, then sighs. “Why would you dream about us dying?” He demands. She takes a long drink to hide her racing thoughts. She knows him well enough to know that he will not let this go, and it might do her some good to get some of her past out in the open with someone who will not call her on the little details.

“Before I met Briar I worked with a group,” she says finally, it is not a complete lie. “There was fourteen of us and we went through a lot of shit together. We were close, as close as a group like that can be anyway. Most of us were older, coming up on our mid hundred if not towards the end of them, but we had two lads with us as well, maybe ten years or so older than you and your brother. They were good,” she takes another drink. “They were really good, but they weren’t trained, not like the rest of us were,” she takes a breath. “We did the last job, and things in the group started to go sour, we were in a dangerous place and couldn’t separate and the two lads were torn between both sides. They had family in the group, it was why they were with us at all. Their Da pushed for them to be with us and their uncle came to watch over the three of them,” a subtle enough change, Thorin is, in some ways, the closest thing to a father those boys really know, “I knew the one who had gathered us together for the jobs, trusted him to have looked into the one who had hired us. That turned out to be a mistake, there was more going on than we were aware of and it was centred on those poor lads’ Da and was the source of the sourness. A massive group of orcs came down on us one night and all the fighting between us all had left us vulnerable. We were taken by surprise and the bastards had killed those boys while they tried to protect their Da, though he was already dead, before the rest of us could cut our way through to them. If not for a group of rangers and a couple of elves they had with them… Well I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you about it all.”

“What does that have anything to do with you dreaming about me and my brother dying?” Kíli asks.

“Because you remind me of those boys, lad,” Nori tells him honestly. “You and your brother both. Seeing that body in there made me think about what they must look like now, and the fate that likely awaits their Ma now since she doesn’t have anyone anymore. And sometimes in those dreams past and present, fear and fantasy mix together. Same as your Ma’s guard reminds me of the uncle that got dragged into the whole mess. He died too. Protecting corpses rather than deciding to live for…” she sets her jaw and sees Kíli nod. Very little of what she has told him is the truth, although she has spun it closely enough to what happened to the Company to keep it believable and to hopefully keep Kíli from spotting the lies. “They aren’t easy memories, lad, and I prefer not to think about them, let alone talk about them.”

“You don’t have to be worried about us,” Kíli assures her.

“I am well aware,” Nori laughs a little bitterly. The fact that she cannot tell Kíli just how real her fears for him and his brother are makes her feel nauseous. “But I’m your sponsor now, Kíli,” she does not use his real name often, and she can see that it has surprised him. “Sometimes that creates a certain bond between two people. May not be the case for you, but I’ve gotten pretty fond of you over the last few months, and your brother by extension. That’s three times in less than two years I’ve let people in. I’m going soft, obviously, and I’m going to worry a bit. The world’s dangerous, lad, and it’s cruel too. I’ve lost a lot over the years.”   
  


“You and the uncle,” Kíli hedges after a moment, “were you lovers?”

“Aye,” Nori looks at her hands. “And I know Dwalin isn’t him,” she adds quickly, even though the dwarf in her story is the future version of the one Kíli looks up to so much, “but they are  _ very _ alike. It was… one day, once you’ve been at this a while, you’ll meet someone who you want to see the real you. Not Kíli the craftless prince who flits around court or Cadan the sneak thief and hidden spy. You’ll want them to see the dwarf underneath it all. You’ll open up and let that person in, and trust them with every part of you that only your brother really sees,” Nori already knows that Kíli has been hiding huge parts of himself from his uncle and mother. “And if you’re lucky they’ll take it, see the person behind the masks, and choose you over everything else, even their own kin and their own sense of duty. If you’re not…” She gestures at herself.

“I had no idea,” Kíli breathes.

“You weren’t meant to,” Nori shrugs. “I’m not one for pity parties. Now, it’s late and I’m still tired. Back to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that didn't quite go the way that I expected the chapter to go. But I think Nori needed it. Only one chapter this week, I've got an assignment due (in two weeks but I'm behind on the unit work) so I need to do actual studying rather than writing or working on crochet Kili.


	26. Fiddler On The Deck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They leave two days later, after having placed what remained of the body into a grave marked with a simple wooden marker.

Nori’s late night moment of openness cuts through the more jovial mood that has grown between them and over the days where they wait the storm out in the farmhouse she sees Kíli watching her as one might look at a puzzle to be figured out. She brushes his questions about the job she referred to aside, they were asked to retrieve something of great value and it ended up going horribly wrong, as some jobs do. That, she tells him, is life and since it has been done nothing about it can be undone. Never mind that she is attempting to do exactly that. Instead she turns her mind to the story that Thorin and Dís have been spreading throughout their acquaintance and thus through the town and Ered Luin: That Kíli has left with a trusted family friend in an attempt to find his true craft.

Nori had almost laughed herself sick at that statement. 

Regardless, it is not unusual for a young dwarf who has not found their craft to spend some time travelling with the caravans in an attempt to find it when they have come of age. In her past, and the future that will not happen, Kíli had done exactly that, although never without Fíli or Dwalin beside him. In fact, he had spent nearly five years with the caravans until Thorin had begun to plan his insane quest to take back the Arkenstone and Erebor with it. More for appearances than anything else, Nori knows that his family were all too aware of his true craft to think such trips would result in anything other than keeping him out of trouble for a time. 

Kíli searching for his craft is an excuse for travel that the two of them will continue to use everytime that Nori wants to get him away from the mountains for any reason, but it will not hurt for him to come back to Ered Luin having found some small passion for something else, even if it is  _ not _ a true craft. It will distract from the fact that he no longer seems overly upset about not having one. 

“You never seem to play where others can hear you,” Nori comments absently on the third day of the storm. It is beginning to die off now and they should be able to move on tomorrow or the day after.

“How do you know that?” Kíli asks as he sets the fiddle he had been playing to one side. He plays as well as Nori remembers, but she kicks herself for forgetting, if only for a moment, that this is not the Kíli that she is so familiar with.

“It’s my job to know as much about you as I can,” Nori replies evasively, “how else am I supposed to teach you to become the best so that you can protect your brother? And yourself as well, for that matter.”

“I’m not the heir,” Kíli objects, “why would anyone care about hurting me?”

“Hurting you,” Nori shrugs, “using you, there’s all sorts that they could do that doesn’t involve hurting or killing you, lad. Fact of it is, they may decide that they prefer the idea of a puppet on the throne, however nonexistent it is these days, and that you’re the ideal candidate. Or they may think that you’re simply preventing them from getting to your brother and uncle and choose to destroy the relationship between the three of you in whatever way they can. They don’t need to do you  _ actual _ harm to cause you to lose everything and your back needs watching too. You’re just as important as your brother.”

“If that were true,” Kíli replies softly, “my Ma wouldn’t have fought so hard against me learning my trade.”

“Nothing to do with you being less important,” Nori shakes her head, “no matter what she might have told you about looking right for your brother and uncle. She wants you safe, and our work isn’t all that safe.” She gets to her feet and crosses from where she has been lounging on the floor next to the fire to the long bench on the other side of the room where Kíli is now staring morosely at the fiddle. “You’re good with this, lad, so why do you never play it where others can hear?”

“I don’t know,” Kíli shrugs. “I just don’t.”

“Well, when we leave, take this with you,” Nori replies. “I think it might be time you get used to playing in public.”

“For Cadan?” He asks.

“For yourself,” Nori sits next to him. “You didn’t find your craft out in the world, but you found something else to be passionate about that you can enjoy. And in a year or two we can leave to ‘try again’ while you learn a few new tricks.” He stares at her. “It’s about time we turn back, lad, and I want to spend a week or two with Briar before we reach your uncle’s Halls to make sure she hasn’t let herself get too rusty. She’s played it down a lot, but the Proudfoot lad worried me the last time I was there. I want to keep an eye on it.”

“Is she that important?” Kíli asks. 

“She is to me,” the thief replies. “But my reasons for that are my own, and not your concern for the time being.” He gives her a sullen glare and Nori remembers all the times in the future that Thorin and Dís will say that to him. “She helped pull me out of a dark place after my friends were killed, lad,” she tells him gently. “Without her I wouldn’t have been the one to catch you stealing from me. That’s why she’s important, no other reason, but strong connections to people outside our line of work can get messy. I trust Briar, and she has shown me I can trust her, but her importance to me is entirely personal.”

“Alright,” Kíli nods after a moment and picks the fiddle up again. “So, you think I should embrace the music more?” He changes the subject and Nori nods. If there is one thing that Kíli seems to have picked up in their time on the road, it is when he should let something go. 

The tune he veins to play is a little mournful, and it does not seem to really fit with the happy go lucky prince that everyone in Ered Luin thinks that they know. How much of the personality that Kíli shows to their people is really a lie, Nori wonders. She does not know the misery of trying to deny what she is, Nori has always accepted her calling and has never been in a position where someone would try to deny her right to pursue it, but Kíli has been fighting to have what he is acknowledged by his family for years. Nori cannot imagine what changes to his behaviour he must have forced himself to make around them so that they would not berate him for what he is. In fact, she suspects that Fíli might be the only one who knows who Kíli really is behind closed doors. She suspects that she has barely scratched past the surface of it all herself for all the months that she has spent on the road with him. She wonders if  _ Kíli  _ even knows who he really is underneath is all and internally she mourns the fact that she has given him another mask to wear rather than allowing him to truly be free.

Rather than dwell on the thought she pulls a small flute from the bottom of her pack, more of a whistle really than an actual instrument but it serves while she is travelling. Her full sized flute is at home with Dori, and it was something that he brother brought into the house in an attempt to give her something to do that did not involve stealing for a living. She prefers the smaller instrument, although she knows that at some stage in the future this one will likely end up being passed around by goblins for entertainment, and she joins in with Kíli’s playing, the counterpart of her flute just a touch more cheerful. Kíli smiles at her briefly and while they do not play together for long, it is enough to take their mind off other conversations that have happened in this small house.

Truth to tell, Nori will be glad when they can put it behind them. It saddens her to think that the previous occupant of this place will lie forgotten and unnamed in their grave once she and Kíli leave, she hopes that they have a son or daughter out there somewhere who will eventually come to look in on the place and erect some sort of memorial, but Nori knows enough of the world to know that it is unlikely that this person had anyone to miss them at all. 

They leave two days later, after having placed what remained of the body into a grave marked with a simple wooden marker. It is not much, but it is more than most would do for any corpse they came across whether in a house or on the road. More often than not a body will be searched for something to identify them and that information will be passed on in the next village. Frequently, however, the lost are never identified and their families never found. Nori carries a carved stone in her pocket in case of such an eventuality. She would never want Dori and Ori to wonder what has become of her if she could help it.

They have spent months ambling from town to town, although not in a straight line. The lands of Men are sparsely populated between towns, but the towns and villages are not so far apart that she and Kíli spend more than four or five days on the ground. The Company had avoided the heavily occupied places during the quest for the most part, although that had mostly been for practical reasons. It costs a lot more to house fifteen people in an inn than it does to keep them in tents. Their only forays into towns had been to resupply, even with ponies no group could carry more than a five or six weeks of hard trail rations, and everyone wants more than tasteless cram and dried meat on occasion. Trail rations are miserable at the best of times and Nori ate enough of them over the course of the quest, even if it has not happened yet, to last her several lifetimes. 

They continue to meander from town to town, leaving the coast and heading inland. There is no rush, although summer is beginning to turn into autumn. The lands immediately surrounding the villages they pass are rich with crops that are gradually being gathered by the farmers who live there. The two dwarves are watched as they pass, sometimes they stop in at the local inn, others they save their coin and continue on. Nori has travelled this side of the Misty Mountains extensively, but even so she refers to her map frequently and ensures that Kíli knows how to read it and determine their location on it as well. It is a basic map, certainly nothing like the well made one that Thorin had carried while they were on their way to Erebor until it was lost under the Misty Mountains. Somehow, though, Thorin had still managed to get them lost a few times. Nori suspects that had more to do with the dwarf king himself than a lack of practice, Thorin is known for disappearing for months at a time to search for his father alone so he has to know how to get himself from one place to the next.

This time when the rain begins to fall there is no stopping to wait it out. In part because there is no where to stop, but also due to lack of funds and time. By the time they make it to Bree they are both wet, cold and tired, and a few lifted purses as they make their way to the Prancing Pony pays well for a filling meal, warm beds, good ale and hot baths in the bathing chamber that is maintained on the lower level. 

“I am never taking this for granted again,” Kíli groans as he sinks into the water. His beard, which has grown in nicely on the road, grazes the water and to Nori’s eyes he looks more like his uncle than ever. “I had no idea that hot water could feel  _ so _ good.” In her own tub next to him, Nori lets out a noise of agreement. “We’re staying for a few days, right?” He asks hopefully.

“Longer we stay, the harder it will be to leave,” Nori points out. “It’s going to be enough of a bugger to leave the Shire once winter sets in, but it’ll cost us a lot less to hole up there than to loiter here.”

“I’m not missing Fíli’s birthday,” Kíli insists.

“Then we aren’t staying,” Nori smiles, although she had already requested a message be sent to Bag End advising of their arrival in a few days. He glares at her over the edge of the tub and then he grins.

“I knew you’d say that,” he almost purrs happily and for a moment Nori thinks that she might have seen the real Kíli.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, somehow I have done my back in. Proof that housework is bad for you really. Or I'm just getting old. Who knows? Regardless, studying continues to eat into my time, made more awkward to do by the back pain, the kids are back to distance learning so they're eating into the computer time even more, but as a result crochet Kili is coming along and may well be done by the end of next week. Maybe.


	27. My Idea of Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You must be that handsome young thing my daughter was talking about when she got back,” Belladonna says

Their entry into the Shire is almost completely unremarked upon, the rain has turned into gentle flurries of snow that lands on sodden ground and freezes over night. The only ones who acknowledge Kíli and Nori as they travel are the ones who own the inns that they stay at overnight. It eats deeply into their purses, which are still fairly fat from the fact that they have spent as little as possible on their travels, relying on their ability to pick pockets and Kíli’s skill with a bow to ensure that they have plenty of food. With the weather as poor as it is, however, and hobbits being untrusting of strangers in general, Nori had decided that it would be sensible for them to use inns during the course of their three day journey from Bree to Hobbiton. The Shire is much larger than it looks to outsiders and the paths are a maze. Looking back on the night that the Company descended on the unsuspecting Briar of the future, Nori marvels at the fact that the dwarves managed to find the smial at all with Gandalf’s somewhat vague directions. 

For the most part the hobbits outside ignore the pair and their pack pony, and those who  _ are _ outside are few and far between. It is only early winter, but the weather has turned quickly and hobbits are known for liking their comforts almost as much as they like their food. The sheer quantity of food that a single hobbit can manage to eat in one sitting amazes Nori, as it will likely fascinate her young apprentice, and it makes her uncomfortable to think of a future where Briar will need to exist in a state of near constant starvation purely because she has embraced her desire for an adventure. Even on the road the hobbit lass would snack frequently on hard tack and foraged fruits from the side of the road while Nori travelled with her. 

The few hobbits they pass glance at the pair, then lower their heads and hurry on through the wind and sleet which changes gradually during the morning that they reach Hobbiton into a full snow storm. Were Nori not as familiar with the route to Bag End as she is, they would be completely turned around and likely end up lost. They do not go to the door immediately, Briar has a small stable in a nearby field which houses her pack pony and has space for another which she had erected during the months Nori spent in Ered Luin after they parted ways the first time. Her pony is already inside, happily munching on some hay and pauses to give them both a disinterested glare before resuming his meal. They tend to their pony quickly and quietly, brushing him through as thoroughly as they can though his shaggy coat damp and chilled.

That done, they make their way up the short path to the green painted door and Nori rings the bell. They only wait a matter of moments before it swings open to reveal the tired and lined face of Belladonna Baggins. She coughs into a handkerchief after looking them both over while Kíli gives a perfunctory bow in much the way that they have practiced for Cadan as he introduces himself as the young thief. When alone Fíli and Kíli tend to be more flamboyant in their greetings, and when together they have perfected doing it in unison. They decided that Cadan should simply do the bare minimum required although Nori can see the slightly pinched expression that Kíli’s face takes on when he is nervous or unhappy about an action. 

“You must be that handsome young thing my daughter was talking about when she got back,” Belladonna says as she peers up at him. Kíli flushes. “Never understood the appeal of all that fur on a face myself, but she’s been interested in it since her father bought her that book when she was a teen.” The hobbit continues to speak as they follow her inside. “But then, you’ve got a lovely neat little beard, nothing like Nori’s great thing, no offense dear,” she directs at the older dwarf who is biting her lips to keep herself from laughing. Belladonna is not much younger than Kíli will be when the quest rolls around, but the difference is stark. She looks far older than Nori thinks a hobbit of seventy-six  _ should _ look.

“How is Briar?” Nori asks to take the attention off Kíli who looks torn between laughter and embarrassment. 

“Silly girl has taken herself off to the market to order more meat,” Belladonna scowls. “Since Hamfist Brookmelt can’t seem to keep a cart in good working order our delivery was short this week. Hamfist by name, hamfist by nature. Useless boy, making her go out in this awful weather at all, but worse since she was in bed with a fever not two weeks ago.” 

Kíli makes an alarmed noise and Nori remembers that he is unaccustomed to the various illnesses that afflict the Men and hobbits. Dwarves, as a rule, do not tend to fall ill in the same way that these younger races do. What illnesses they do suffer with are debilitating and always fatal. The longest lasting of them is Dragon Lung, which affected so many dwarves who fled Erebor. No one knows exactly what causes it, and Nori suspects that had she stayed in the future much of the Company would have eventually succumbed to it at some point in the future, only that those it afflicted seemed random. Thorin was among those who faced Smaug’s fire on the dragon’s arrival in Erebor and yet suffered no ill effects from it. Nori brings her mind back to the present, she is no healer and she very much doubts that even they know the reason that the dragon fire affected some and not others. She has, in the future, seen Briar with a fever. If the hobbit is out and about now she has obviously recovered well enough, and the cough that Belladonna gives a moment later makes Nori suspect that even if Briar is not fully recovered it is better that the younger hobbit be out than the elder.

“You’ll have the same room you had last time, Nori,” Belladonna resumes talking as the coughing fit eases. “And I’ve put your young friend in the room next door. Unless you have a reason to want him in with you?”

“He’s a good lad,” Nori shrugs off the question. “He gets into things he shouldn’t like all tweens but there’s no harm in him. And he’s old enough to look after himself.”

Kíli looks like he has no idea whether he should be pleased or offended by the statement, but he does not argue or grumble about it, which is to his credit since even when obviously in the wrong the young prince would often fight back. Habit, Nori suspects, will keep him doing exactly that where his mother and uncle are concerned, it is what keeps her arguing with Dori long after the reasons for their fights have become forgotten and lost.

The pair are not long settled when Nori hears the door open once more. She and Kíli are settled in the sitting room, her with her small flute and Kíli with the beaten fiddle as they play quietly for Belladonna. The elderly hobbit is sat in front of the fire with a cup of tea and a content smile as she listens to the pair play. The younger hobbit pokes her head in at the sound and smiles, then quickly excuses herself to wash her feet and dry off. Belladonna is out of her chair with a speed that seems to surprise Kíli given her age and apparent frailty, bustling around her daughter as she takes the basket of meat and orders her into a hot bath before she joins their guests.

“It’s horrible out there,” Briar comments some time later as she walks into the room, a towel in hand as she rubs it through her hair. “I ran into Mrs Grubb while I was at the butchers,” she adds in her mother’s direction. “She’s invited us all to a Yule gathering in four days time. She extended the invitation to you and Cadan when I told her we were expecting guests,” she adds to Nori.

“Be rude to refuse it, I suppose,” the thief comments lightly. Briar gives her an amused look.

“Tell me everything that you’ve both been up to,” she says as she settles closer to her friend, apparently having decided not to challenge Nori on her decision to use her manners. The hobbit knows how Nori feels about some things that are considered polite by others.

They spend a happy few hours curled up by the fire while Belladonna putters around the kitchen as Nori tells Briar about some of the scrapes she and Kíli got into while they were travelling and he was learning. She leaves out some details, such as Kíli’s encounter with the irate father of the barmaid he went home with and the farmer’s corpse in his otherwise abandoned home, but she tells much of the rest with amusement at both his and her own, occasional, foly. 

By the time Nori retires after dinner, warm and full of good hobbit food, some of the shadows which had been lingering since her late night moment of half honesty with Kíli have lifted. Some still linger, the memories of the end will never truly fade because they never really do. She once heard such things compared to being a lone dwarf on an open plain surrounded by enemies. Over time the number of enemies that dwarf might face reduces as they are slain, but one enemy or another will always get in a lucky strike and the more of them that there are the more strikes will get past that lone dwarf’s defences. Her metaphorical enemies have dwindled rapidly, far more quickly than they would have had she remained in the future that she cannot let come to pass, but they are still there and they still wait for that moment to lash out when her defences are low. 

As relaxed as she is in the Shire, however, does not mean that she lowers her guard at all. Kíli may seem like an empty headed fool when in the mountains, but Nori doubts that even those who argue that he must have solid rock in place of a brain would think him foolish enough to break the trust of knowing another’s battle dreams and the source of them. She knows that by the time the quest comes along he will have a few of his own from the caravans, something that had horrified the Briar she had travelled to Erebor with, and that the Kíli of now will be aware that his uncle and Dwalin both dream of Azanulbizar and, in Thorin’s case, the fall of Erebor. To his credit, the lad has not even attempted to discuss what he learnt that night with her, though the way that he looks at her sometimes makes her suspect that he is thinking about. Especially when he will look so thoughtfully at Briar and then at herself, perhaps finally taking a moment to assess the effect that the loss of a lover can have on a person when he can see the marks of age so clearly on Belladonna Baggins. 

It is not until they attend the Yule party, some days after their arrival, that Nori realises that Belladonna’s aged appearance when she is only seventy-six, is considered extreme even by other hobbits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's Friday, and my back hurts so I can't focus on my studying. Have an extra chapter. Plus, it's a bridge chapter. Nothing much happens but stuff still happens. Sort of. We're really getting into Nori's head here.


	28. The Merriest Yule Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If looks could kill, Nori muses, Briar’s current expression would be more deadly than Smaug’s flames.

The weather continues to be poor in the days following the dwarves arrival in Bag End, the snow falls thick and heavy to coat the ground in a blanket of soft white. Nori and Kíli help to clear the steps to the door and the path that runs in front of the house and down the hill, the strong arms and backs of dwarves warmly welcomed by the normally insular hobbits. The families that they give their help to repay them with pies, both sweet and savory, small casks of pale ale and bottles of smooth liquor. While it is not the coin which might exchange hands in Ered Luin, the exquisite flavours of the food and drink they are given seem to be worth almost more than gold. There is a strong air of community about the hobbits, something that is occasionally missing in dwarven towns, and although they are typically wary of outsiders once Nori and Kíli show that they are willing to help where they may the hobbits accept them easily.

In between helping the hobbits to clear snow from the nearby areas, Nori and Kíli spend some time training with Briar. She has converted one of the other bedrooms into a training room, something that Belladonna has apparently complained bitterly about to her daughter and Briar laughs it off cheerfully. Aside from Nori, the family have had no other guests overnight for years so the room will not be missed. The three of them spend time practicing in the room, there is even a crudely made training dummy that gets shoved into a corner to give the three of them some space to throw one another around a bit. Kíli has come on leaps and bounds in his training in this particular method of combat, although Nori had known that he would pick it up rapidly given his general skill and eagerness to learn, but the repetitive practice that Briar has engaged in has developed her muscle memory enough to help her compensate for lack of experience. Nori does not want her to be an expert, should the quest begin the way that Nori remembers she knows that Thorin will be suspicious if he finds a skilled warrior in this sleepy place of farmers. Fortunately, Kíli understands that where Briar is concerned he needs to pull his punches slightly, when he spars with his brother and a few others it often seems like he is actively trying to slaughter his opponent. Whether it is his own understanding that Briar is not a born warrior, or simply that he likes the hobbit too much to push her too hard Nori neither knows nor cares. As long as Briar does not end up with any broken bones or permanent damage that is all that matters.

Their afternoon of training is set aside four days after the dwarves’ arrival so that they can attend the Yule party that is being thrown by Mrs Amethyst Grubb. She knows that Mrs Grubb and Belladonna are good friends, she also knows that their host of the afternoon is some twelve years the senior of Briar’s mother. So it is something of a surprise to find a much more spry and lively hobbit matron. Amethyst Grubb has grey hair, much as Belladonna does, but where Belladonna’s is entirely grey and thinning a little, Amethyst's is thick and still streaked through with the remnants of the gold it must once have been. Her blue eyes sparkle with life and humour, and her voice is firm and full of cheer. The other matrons in the room, all ranging in age from a decade Belladonna’s junior to twenty or so years her senior, are all of a similar level of sprightliness except the elder two who are almost as elderly in appearance as Briar’s mother but are somewhere in their mid to late nineties.

Nori and Kíli’s presence is welcomed thanks to their efforts over the last four days and the gathered hobbits, some twenty or so crammed into what turns out to be quite a spacious underhill home, greet them cheerfully. Nori stations herself in a corner of the large sitting room, watching with sharp eyes as young hobbits dart back and forth from the kitchen in attempts to swipe sweet treats without being caught. Kíli lingers with Briar and Belladonna, his open face and eager demeanour prompting those that the pair are conversing with to include him easily and answer his questions without even thinking about it. This is not Cadan, they have deliberately built Cadan to be a little more cautious and guarded. This is Kíli the prince, who charms the people around him into giving him information that they should not while seeming to be less than he is. Nori will have to discuss this with him later, he cannot simply flip to the personality of the prince simply because they are in company that he wants to be able to enjoy, but she will leave it for the moment. He is fresh to the necessity of disguising himself still, and the prince can still be a useful person in this situation. 

Nori sees the arrival of Borden Proudfoot and his mother before Briar does, but the moment that she notices them she turns her attention to her friend and apprentice. Kíli is looking in Nori’s direction and she uses a quick flicker of Îglishmêk to warn him to stick close to Briar when she is not near her. The last thing that they need is the persistent hobbit to attempt to cause a scene. From the way that Borden’s face falls when he spots Nori and then Kíli near Briar the thief knows that he was hoping to corner the lass. It could well be time to do something permanent about him before he can hurt Briar.

Throughout the afternoon they manage to run enough interference to prevent Borden from getting a moment with Briar alone and they can see him gradually becoming more and more frustrated by the fact that there is constantly a dwarf at the hobbit lass’s side. When Nori and Kíli are not near her, Belladonna is there and Nori knows that Briar’s mother is well aware of the fact that Briar wants nothing at all to do with the Proudfoot boy. Finally, while they are drinking tea after a large buffet dinner, the wildness in the lad’s expression shifts to something calculating and, Nori thinks, a touch smug. He gets to his feet and calls for the attention of the room.

“I would like to announce,” he calls once everyone has paused to hear him, “that Briar Baggins and I are betrothed!” 

The silence, which had been indulgent, shifts into an awkward disbelief. More than one face takes on an expression of pinched confusion and Nori sees Mrs Proudfoot’s face fall in mortification as she seems to realise what her son is about. The thief nudges her apprentice’s foot with her own, Kíli seemingly poised to call the hobbit lad out on his lies, and turns an amused gaze towards Briar. If looks could kill, she muses, Briar’s current expression would be more deadly than Smaug’s flames.

**-What do we do?-** Kíli signs, the movements discrete but unlikely to be noticed by the hobbits who seem to look a mix between anticipatory and horrified.

**-Wait-** She gestures back.

“And when,  _ exactly _ , did this happen,  _ Mister Proudfoot _ ?” Briar demands. “I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of your sorry person in over a month, though I confess I felt only relief at that. Did you ask, perhaps, while I was sleeping? Or maybe while I was feverish in bed three weeks ago? For I can assure you that only an illness which robbed me entirely of my senses, good and bad, would induce me to accept an offer from a self absorbed weasel such as yourself!” There are a few titters. “Can you tell me the title of my favourite book? Or my preferred dish? For that matter, do you even have the slightest idea of how I take my  _ tea _ ? We have been in company enough for you to have learnt  _ that _ by simple observation. Our families have dined together enough over the years for you to know those preferences at least, so can you tell me about them?”

“Such tiny details are the sort of thing that can be learnt after marriage,” Proudfoot sniffs. “They are hardly important.”

“I think you will find that they are  _ very _ important,” one of the matrons points out with a disappointed glare. 

“And nor did you answer her other question,” Mrs Grubb adds. “One which we would  _ all _ like to hear the answer to. Your proposal must have been impressive indeed to convince her. Briar has been vocal since her return from Ered Luin about the fact that she does not intend to marry for some time yet.”

Briar snorts, although her eyes dart briefly to Kíli.

“Well, if she hasn’t seen him in over a month,” Nori pipes up just to stir the pot a little more, “he’s hardly behaving like a  _ hopeful _ suitor would, let alone one hoping to turn a courtship into marriage. A dwarf who did such a thing would expect to receive a fist to the face at least,” she shrugs, “but I suppose you do things differently here and the marriage of relative strangers is the norm.”

“It most certainly is not,” Briar informs her, a little tartly. Nori hums.

“Regardless of the rest,” Belladonna pipes up, her voice firmer than it has been in the time that Nori has known her, “my husband’s will made it abundantly clear that Briar would only inherit our wealth and property upon my passing if she were unmarried, or her husband was one that I had given my  _ whole hearted _ approval to.” Nori has the pleasure of watching the Proudfoot boy’s expression shift from the smug certainty that he has backed Briar into a corner that she will not be able to get out of without shattering her reputation and standing, to the kind of sick horror of realisation that if he is successful here he will not get any of the land and money that he is hoping to get his hands on. “I most certainly do  _ not _ approve. First, you failed to approach  _ me _ about this before announcing it, and I know that my friends here will not resent me for pointing out that they enjoy gossip as much as the next hobbit. Second, my daughter and I talk about many things, including the sort of lad she wishes to one day love and marry. We also talk about the sort of pondlife she would rather die than be tied to.  _ You _ fall quite firmly into the second category, boy. And thirdly, and perhaps the most damning of all of them, I am well aware of your reputation, Broden. It disgusts me. I would never approve of my daughter tying herself to one who has no concept of what the word ‘no’ means. If you push this, you will regret it. The Baggins name carries far more weight than yours, and do not forget who  _ owns _ the house that you live in.”

“Borden, please,” his mother cuts in, “this is lunacy, stop.”

Nori hopes, rather than believes, that the lad will listen to his mother. If not for the fact that she and Kíli have been getting between Briar and Borden all afternoon the dwarf suspects that this whole encounter would have ended very differently. As it is, the lad is cowed. Nori has heard enough about some of the matrons in this room to know that they are some of the most vicious gossips in the Shire. Borden Proudfoot is not getting out of this with his reputation intact.

Briar is going to need to watch her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In one week my kids go back to actual school rather than virtual learning. I can't wait, especially since GDK is living up to the Grumpy part of his moniker. It will also mean that I can go back to studying properly rather than snatching writing time between moments like I have been.


	29. Horses Prance Through A Silver Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nori refuses to acknowledge the fact that her determination to keep Fíli and Kíli on good terms plays into the fact that she sometimes wishes she could have kept that same relationship she had with Dori before discovering her craft.

They stay for a little over a week after Yule before the weather clears enough to allow their departure. Winter travel is slower than any other time of year, the days shorter and the roads more treacherous. Darkness, of course, does not bother Nori or Kíli all that much, dwarves have superior darksight to the other races aside from elves. The cold is more of a problem, just because they do not feel it as keenly due to the dwarvish habit of wearing layers of fur most of the time, does not mean that is is a good idea for them to travel in the dark while the temperatures have dropped to the point that everything around them freezes, though they are not as far north as Erebor it can still get very cold in this part of the world. 

As a rule, Nori tends to ignore dates, there are some that are important and she will attempt to keep track of those, but time tends to lose meaning on the road and she is painfully aware of how difficult Balin found it to keep track of time once they had been given their deadline for reaching Erebor. Mirkwood and the dungeons of the Woodland King had made that even more difficult. Knowing how important it is to Kíli that they be back in time for Fíli’s coming of age she had made certain to check the date in every town they entered, taking the time to teach Kíli the all important ability to convert the dates as Men reckon them into that of their people. Nori knows how close the two lads are, and she does not want Kíli’s trade to be a source of contention for them. It will not end well for the pair to be at odds for any reason and if that means the misery of a winter journey she will risk it in order to keep them on good terms. 

She refuses to acknowledge the fact that her determination to keep Fíli and Kíli on good terms plays into the fact that she sometimes wishes she could have kept that same relationship she had with Dori before discovering her craft.

While still in the Shire Nori and Kíli keep their ears to the ground for any fall out from the incident with the Proudfoot boy. Nothing negative is said about Briar at all, most seem relieved that she was bold enough to stand against him so vocally and protected enough by her friends that the lad could not enact whatever other plan he had been intending on. His reputation, however, has not only taken a dive, accusations from other lasses of the kind of behaviour which would have his arm removed, at least, in Ered Luin have emerged. Only one is as bad as Nori feared she might one day hear from Briar, but for the hobbits that single accusation is enough alongside the desperate behaviour displayed both during the Yule gathering and after when Kíli had caught the boy attempting to break into Bag End. It had been luck that the lad held back from killing the weasel, or perhaps Kíli was smart enough to have realised that killing Proudfoot would have ended poorly, Nori knows that the boy has more brains than he likes to show others. Borden Proudfoot is taken to the small jail in Michel Delving, and it is unlikely that he will be seen outside it for a number of years.

Nori is not sure whether that is a relief or concern, but she promises herself that in four years, which will hopefully coincide with the time that Kíli needs to learn to use poisons and the like from Briar, she will bring her apprentice back to the Shire and spend some time making sure that Borden does not try to get any sort of revenge on the hobbit. Were it not for the fact that Borden has been locked away for a time, Nori would be more nervous about leaving the Shire. As it is, the lad’s mother is more concerned about the fact that Briar and Belladonna could throw her and her younger children from their home since they own it than the fact that her unhinged son has been taken from her. If anything she seems relieved that he has been removed from her life for the time being. 

Regardless of Nori’s personal preference of staying close to Briar, however, she has a promise to keep to Kíli and his brother. They leave as soon as they are able and make the long, cold, miserable trip back to Ered Luin. Nori truly hates winter travel. She and Kíli curl together most nights, even those nights in the cabins that are littered along the roads since the fires in there take a while to remove the knife sharp cold in the mostly disused buildings. Very few people travel at this time of year and Nori already understood that even before this trip with Kíli and well before the quest of her future. She has travelled more in her life than she will ever admit to any of the people who know her. Not all of her trips have ended well or been the sort of thing that she would want to remember. 

They arrive in town early on the day of Fíli’s coming of age having travelled through the night. It is not something that Nori would do under normal circumstances, but she is also aware that they have cut it close to their deadline and if they were to stop for the night they would arrive late and in no fit state for Kíli to make an appearance. So they travel overnight and make their way into Dori’s apartment over his shop some time after breakfast. There is the temptation for Kíli to go straight home and see his mother and brother before the party that evening, which they know from a letter that Fíli had sent to the Shire that had been waiting for their arrival. Instead they go to the empty bedrooms, Nori passing out in her own room while Kíli crashes in Ori’s old room. 

They both sleep late, far later than either of them intend to, but with plenty of time to wash in the small tub on the ground floor. Nori braids her hair carefully, avoiding the peaks that she had become fond of in the years that she worked for Thorin. Instead she takes on a very simple style, one that she has used in the past, and pulls a relatively ornate dress out of her wardrobe which she has only worn once at this time in her life, for a job in the richer sector of the town which not only went well, but did not expose her alter ego’s involvement and so that character is someone that she can be at the party without much suspicion. In reality, she is Nori, child of Aari. In this part of town no one is really certain if she is male or female unless she lets them know, as she often does when looking for some fun in one tavern or the other. In this dress she is Nori, daughter of Tori. Nori is a common name, although often used primarily as a nickname for young children given that it means ‘Little Scrap’ in ancient Khuzdul. It is also one that crops up often in her line, given that she and her brothers are descendents of the original Ri branch of the line of Durin. Other branches of her line have cropped up over the years, and there are plenty of Tori’s, Lori’s, Dori’s and Ori’s and so on wandering around out there as well as the various Nori’s. It allows her to get away with a great deal while still using her own name. 

Kíli does not have that luxury. The names of the two princes are unusual, and a major break in tradition for the line of Durin given they were named for the lower ranked line and not the higher. Which is why Nori, Dori and Ori are all named for the Ri line, where other branches are not, because they are the elder line and higher ranked even though they are almost penniless at this point in time. Durin’s direct line seems to cycle through the same collection of names for their heirs and neither Fíli nor Kíli is in that collection. Then again, Thorin was always intended to father his  _ own _ heir. 

She shakes her head and brings herself back to the present. This is what happens when her travels begin to catch up to her.

“You need to braid your hair,” Nori informs Kíli when he appears dressed in the clothes he had stashed away before leaving. The tunic is far finer than anything he has worn in months, and though it is slightly large it, and the trousers, no longer fits quite right due to changes in his build due to the new techniques he has been learning. 

“Why?” He tilts his head. “I never did before.”

“You didn’t have a beard before either,” Nori points out, flipping her mostly loose hair behind her shoulders as she catches her beard in a simple gold clip, thankful now that she had not given in to the impulse to cut it off after telling some semblance of her story to Kíli. “You’re the spoiled princeling now, lad, time to play the part. Braids and all.”

Kíli huffs. On the road he has kept his hair almost entirely braided back while Nori wore hers in the star formation which she would come to favour while working for Thorin. She almost hates the style now due to the memories she associates with it and she had only worn it out of habit. It is one she will very likely break. Kíli looks very different with his hair wild and loose about his face, as she had known that he would, but he also needs to place the braids of a prince, the pair on each side of his face much like Fíli wears, that show his true status. Kíli may not like it, but the simple royal braids will go a long way towards easing his family’s concerns over his path in life. Nori knows how unfair that is, but she also knows that things will be easier in the future if he can adapt a little to his mother and uncle’s expectations now rather than attempting it later.

They leave not long later, Kíli in his fine clothes and Nori in hers, arm in arm as they waltz through the town. Kíli grins brightly and greets various guards as they go, introducing her as an old friend to those who enquire, though not many do since they are apparently accustomed to seeing Kíli return with all manner of people when he has managed to sneak out. A number of them welcome him back to town and they even pause for ten minutes to talk with one of the lad’s regular hunting companions who tells him that his mother has been short on temper while he has been away and his brother has been seen in the frequent company of a lass with silver hair. Nori stashes that piece of information away, something about it rings a bell though she cannot quite bring it to mind just yet. It will come to her, it always does in the end, and she refuses to let herself dwell on the clues that she once put together too late and the outcome that came with it. She plans on preventing that this time anyway. 

“Back then, are you?” Dwalin says as they approach the front of the house.

“Didn’t you get an invitation to the party, Guard?” Nori smirks.

“If any of us is uninvited, lass, it’s you,” he shrugs, “but Fíli was getting worried that someone might try and stop you getting in, said I’d come and keep an eye out.”

“Fíli or Ma?” Kíli asks with a smirk. Dwalin gives him an unimpressed glare. “Ma then,” the lad concludes. “She’s the only one who can make you look like that without trying.”

“I wish,” Dwalin mumbles, “get your arses inside then, if you’re going.”

“Are you coming?” Kíli asks him.

“I’ll take a moment longer,” Dwalin shakes his head, “There’s a lot of people in there.”

Dwalin, Nori knows, has never been much of one for crowds. He once told her that it goes back to Azanulbizar and the crush of orcs and dwarves around him. Having experienced the horrors of the battle at the foot of Erebor Nori can well believe that an experience like that would have that kind of effect on a person. She lingers for a moment, a habit from her years working for Thorin and their time together, then he meets her eyes and jerks his head to the side. 

“Go on, lass,” he says, “I’m no helpless babe needing protection from the big bad world.”

But for a moment, just a fleeting one, Nori  _ does _ want to protect him from the world. She has not forgiven his future self for turning from her, but a summer with Kíli has reminded her that this is not the Dwalin that turned from her and that he may never become that dwarf. Her heart, it would seem, still belongs to him and that dampens her good mood. She gives him a curt nod and flounces into the building.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, I'm a few chapters ahead, and I'm a comments junkie. A proper comments junkie, nothing I like more than waking up in the morning and sipping at my coffee while reading comments through sleepy eyes. But regardless of that, I am ahead and I don't like sitting on too many chapters in backlog, I forget what's up and what isn't and that makes it hard to answer things. There's too much going on in my head at any one point to always keep it all straight.


	30. Circus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Not a scratch on him,” Nori says as she feels Dís approach. “I keep my word, princess.”

The great hall, a room that is two storeys high with partially enclosed walkways around the top, which usually houses what passes for a throne room for Thorin is filled with people. Dwarves ranging from around Kíli’s age to fairly elderly mill about the room. One wall has a large number of tables pushed against it which groan with food and drink, another side of the room has been cleared as a dance floor and several dwarves have already begun playing as others dance. It does not take her long to spot Fíli, who is clinging to his brother with a look of unbridled joy on his youthful face. She does not approach, keeping her distance for a while as she mills through the crowd, habit forcing her to keep the two lads in sight as they chatter excitedly. 

“Not a scratch on him,” Nori says as she feels Dís approach. “I keep my word, princess.”

“Apparently,” Dís replies in a cool voice. “Although I fail to see why you decided to come tonight.”

“I wanted to be certain he got back here alright,” Nori shrugs. “He’s my apprentice, makes him my responsibility. We’ve been gone a while, wanted to make sure that he didn’t give anything away.”

“I suppose your dedication does you some credit,” Dís sighs.

“Don’t hurt yourself trying to find some virtue in me,” Nori laughs, “I’m no paragon, half the town knows that. I’m fond of the boy, hard not to be when he’s your only company. You either get fond of each other, or you start to hate each other.”

“And your past with Dwalin?” Dís asks. 

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Nori asks in exasperation, wondering when she became so transparent. “We have no past, we’re nothing more than an irritation to one another.” Dís snorts. 

“To  _ you _ maybe,” she comments, glancing across the room where Nori can see Dwalin watching them both. “He’s been watching you since he came back inside.”

“He’s a guard, I’m a thief,” Nori shrugs, “nothing more than that. Don’t go seeing things that aren’t there, princess.”

“That’s  _ your _ job?”

“Mine is to see the things that  _ are _ there that everyone else ignores,” Nori replies, still processing the faint itch in the back of her mind about the lass Fíli has been spending time with. Something about this celebration and that lass is niggling at her memory and she cannot quite work out what it is.

“How many more of Kíli’s birthdays will I miss?” Dís demands after a moment. “He was long gone with you this time. Will I miss the next one? Or his coming of age?”

“Depends on how the rest of this winter plays out,” Nori shakes her head, Kíli’s sixty-fourth birthday had been missed entirely by both of them until they reached a town and realised. “He has a lot to learn, still. People think what we do is easy,” she sighs, “it isn’t. He’s good, but we haven’t hit overconfidence yet, we won’t want to be in town when that comes crashing down around his ears. I’ll take him out a few times over the years, but if it makes you feel better I’ll try and keep him here for his next birthday.”

“Don’t put yourself out on my account,” Dís huffs and walks away.

Nori mills around a little bit more, talking with a few people who she knows from the months she spent pretending to be Nori, daughter of Tori. She hears more about the lass that Fíli has been spending time with and it makes her wonder how much taking Kíli out of town has changed things. Certainly, at least as far as she remembers, Fíli had never taken a set interest in a single lad or lass. He had his share of lovers, no young dwarf really goes without the odd partner here or there regardless of their status. Some will conclude that such activities are not for them, but many will embrace the fun that comes with them. Nori knows very well that both Fíli and Kíli are in the latter category, although Kíli is a closet romantic. Her mind is taken from her deliberations when Dwalin approaches her and asks her to join him in a dance. She wants to refuse him, but since she suspects that it will start a fight she agrees somewhat reluctantly. 

Traditionally, most dwarf dances do not lend themselves to conversation. They are fast paced and noisy. There are some, however, that are a little more sedate, viewed by many dwarves as about as romantic as dwarf dancing can get, and it is one of those that the musicians decide to play as Dwalin walks to the dance floor with Nori. Even the large guard looks put out with the change as they move through the simple steps, too close to avoid speech even though they both want to. It becomes quickly obvious to Nori why the tone has changed when she glances over and sees Fíli leading a silver-haired lass in the steps while Kíli watches on from his place next to his mother. The dark-haired prince looks unhappy, not that Nori blames him given he has only just returned and his brother has vanished off to enjoy himself with a girl. She can admit that the lass is pretty, her hair colour indicating a rather large amount of Stonefoot heritage in her which is an unusual sight in Ered Luin, although Dori’s own silver hair at his young age speaks to some stonefoot in her own ancestry. The Stonefoots, along with a small number of Ironfists and Stiffbeards, mostly live in Ered Nimrais and rarely travel north. 

“Hela, daughter of Sela,” Dwalin mutters to her in a low voice. “Her father is a merchant who arrived from Ered Nimrais not long after you departed with Kíli.”

Nori feels things in her mind come together with what should be an audible thunk and her eyes begin to dart about the room even as Dwalin spins her in the dance. She does not remember all the details of the incident, she was not there after all although it was one of a few things that will eventually cause Thorin to admit that he needed someone like her to watch over his family. It also cost them a rather lucrative regular caravan into the mountains. Dwalin does not seem to notice her change in demeanor, or if he does he does not bother to mention it given she has been watching everything in the room since she arrived anyway. Kíli, however, does notice that she has become more watchful and he raises his left hand to scratch at the tip of his nose twice, thief’s sign  _ trouble _ . In return she scratches under her right eye three times,  _ watch carefully _ . Thief’s sign is a branch out of Iglishmêk and her people are expected to be able to switch between and combine the two with ease. Nori can, if she concentrates, hold three different conversations all at once. She prefers not to, it gives her a headache and if she loses focus it is all too easy to muddle one or the other. 

Nothing happens while she is dancing, not that she expects it to, but she excuses herself from Dwalin’s company all the same. Being close to him twists her head and emotions around too much and she cannot afford that right now. She needs to focus. Instead she stations herself quietly where she can watch Fíli, Kíli and the lass, Hela. It takes a while of watching the walkway around the upper level, it is designed to be relatively unobtrusive so the openings are fairly narrow and spaced quite far apart, but eventually she spots a small amount of movement where there should not be any. She knows from her time working for Thorin that part of the walkway is in the areas that only family is permitted to go and every family member who might have reason to be up there is clearly visible in the hall. Nori tenses slightly, she will not be able to get to that area to confront whoever is hiding there, not dressed as she is without drawing attention. Nori as she is dressed is known in this area and every time she moves somewhere different in the room someone stops her to ask how she is recovering after a group of swindlers made off with all of her, and a good deal of many others, money. She stations herself so that she can watch the opening she had seen the movement at carefully.

For a moment she curses the fact that she has spent the summer away with Kíli, this is one of the times where she misses her future relationship with Dwalin. In the future she and Dwalin would have a series of signals they could give each other to handle something like this, attempted assassination of members of the royal family happens with alarming frequency. There is always someone who is upset for one reason or another, and Nori has heard the mutterings in all corners about the number of misfortunes their people have suffered under the leadership of the line of Durin. She watches tensely for a time, eyes flickering frequently between the small opening and the lads until a momentary scuffle alerts her to the fact that whoever is up there has been discovered. For a few minutes she allows herself to relax, but that churning in her gut which comes from years of watching over this family refuses to settle, even when Dwalin comes to stand next to her, apparently casual but she can see the way that his muscles in his arms tense and she knows that he is ready for if she decides to run.

“Got him, then?” She asks, lifting a tankard of ale to her lips to hide the words. Dwalin nods. “How’d you figure out he was there.”

“ _ You _ got all squirrelly when you heard the lass’s name,” Dwalin replies. “I pay attention to things, even if I don’t know half the shit you do, and I can put two and two together. There a hit on her?”

“Not that I know of,” Nori shakes her head. “Hearing her name just happened to coincide with me spotting something off, that’s all. Not every coincidence is a conspiracy,” she swallows back the angry hiss that wants to emerge as she says the same words a future Dwalin once said to her when they were talking about the orcs which had dogged their path towards Erebor.

“Not sure if I should believe that,” Dwalin grunts. 

“Trust me, guard,” Nori sniffs, “I don’t mix jobs. Soon as I took the lad on anything that might even remotely relate to him, his family or this building went off limits. Not to mention I’ve only been in town long enough to sleep, wash and drag my arse here for this… party.” She looks out at the densely packed room. “What weapon did your would be assassin have on him?” She asks after a beat.

“Bow,” Dwalin replies, “only thing he  _ could _ use from that distance.” 

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” Nori asks. “Bows are fantastic over distance, but at an event like this there’s too much chance of accidentally hitting someone. All of my people are trained to know better.” Dwalin scowls.

“You think it was a decoy?” He demands.

“Event like this?” She shrugs, “I’d want to distract the guards for a bit before I struck. It would make getting away easier.” Dwalin curses and after a moment so does she. Of  _ course _ it was a distraction, it could hardly be anything other than a distraction all things considered. “Don’t,” she rests her hand on Dwalin’s arm without thinking when he begins to move away, “if you rush whoever it is that’s been hired will withdraw and wait for another time. Just,” she rolls her eyes. “Trust me and play along. I’m aware it isn’t going to sit well with your delicate sensibilities, trusting a thief and all, but we don’t want the attention.”

“You seem to take great joy in putting words and thoughts in my head,” Dwalin grumbles as he walks slowly with her towards the princes and Hela.

“We don’t need to do this now,” Nori hisses through a smile, “I don’t need you poking around my head when I need to focus.”

“One of these days,” Dwalin mutters, “you are going to explain.”

“The day I die maybe,” Nori growls back, her eyes running over the dwarves near the princes. 

It takes her a moment longer than she would like to spot her target, and that is only because she sees him hesitate with his dagger when Kíli moves between him and Fíli while telling some story. She whistles sharply, the sound carrying over the deep sound of gathered dwarves singing and chattering. Several people look around to find the source of the sound, though none could tell that it is her from the way she is smiling brightly up at Dwalin. She tugs her left ear and sees Kíli’s attention turn back to his conversation though his stance shifts. 

For a moment she wonders if she has made the assassin too wary for him to bother with his attempt. Then there is a gasp, Fíli shouts, Kíli’s hand shoots out, and Dwalin grabs the second assassin as Nori slips away into the crowd. Better that she not be seen, although if any of her people call her on it she can say that she was working a job. She recognises the dwarf, she knows a lot of the people in her line of work and she has always made a point of knowing the assassins. In her original lifetime they never found the dwarf who threw the dagger, and she knows that Hela had not been the target since she had stepped in front of Fíli only a moment before the dagger sank in. Nori’s concern right now is Kíli, the dwarf in question is known among her people for using poison and it had been that which had killed the lass.

“Are you hurt?” She hisses, joining the three youths and taking the dagger from the prince.

“Not even a scratch,” he says cheerfully, holding up both hands to show the thick leather gloves he had put on that evening as part of his princely look. Nori breathes a sigh of relief.

“How did you  _ do _ that?” Hela asks, blue eyes wide.

“It was a game Fíli and I played sometimes when we were out hunting,” Kíli shrugs as his brother stares at him over the girl’s shoulder. Nori gives him a quick warning look.

“Until our mother caught us,” Fíli says quickly. “I believe she said she’d shave us bald if she caught us mucking around like that again. It might improve my brother’s appearance, but it would certainly ruin mine so we agreed to stop for a while.” Hela smiles.

“Well, I’m just as glad you knew how to do it,” she says. “It would have been a terrible way to end Prince Fíli’s birthday.”

“You might want to get that to Dwalin, lad,” Nori tells Kíli, handing the knife back to him, then gives Fíli a wry grin. “Happy birthday, my prince,” she adds.

“Thank you for keeping your promise,” he replies. 

“I don’t often get a chance to keep them,” Nori admits, “I’m glad this was one of them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. This one didn't quite go the way that I had planned, but I'm happy with it in the end. Gave me the excuse I needed for things that happen over the next few chapters to happen. Crochet Kili became Balin, because he came out too short for several reasons. Crochet Balin isn't finished. I'm working on his clothes right now, but unsurprisingly there are fewer close and clear pictures of his clothes than there are of Fili and Kili's. Hopefully, the one I'm working on now will actually end up as Kili. You know, when I get chance to work on him among other things.


End file.
